94 Hikes in Tonto National Forest

A Web-based Hiking Guide

Ronald Roedel

Miner's Needle	Confluence of Haigler and Tonto Creeks
Mt. Peeley	Picketpost Mountain

Introduction to this Hiking Guide

Tonto National Forest contains some of the most varied terrain in the United States. Within the National Forest there are approximately 2.9 million acres of stunning forests of cactus, chaparral, pine/juniper, and mixed conifer. Tonto NF is so spectacular that Congress has established eight Wilderness regions in the Forest (seven entirely within the Forest and one shared with Prescott National Forest), one Wild and Scenic River, and two Wildlife Areas (more details on these later).

It can be claimed that going from the southern edge of Tonto NF near Superior to the northern edge at the Mogollon Rim is equivalent to a journey from Mexico to Canada!

To span the entire Tonto National Forest in Arizona, 98 US Geological Survey topographic maps (1:24000 scale, or 7.5 minute) are needed. Given the immense size and diversity of Tonto NF, it occurred to me that there must be at least one magnificent hike located within the region "captured" by each topo map. Surely,I thought, each topo contains at least one area worth exploring, one region that holds a stupendous adventure. That, in a nutshell, is the point of this hiking/adventure book - a web-based description of 94 trips that reveal the quintessence of Tonto NF.

Format of this Hiking Guide

Hold on - 94 hikes in a region covered by 98 topos? The perimeter of Tonto NF is contained within 45 of the 98 topos - but 4 of the 45 do not really hold any adventure possibilities, typically because the portion of Tonto NF they include is too small.

There are probably 10 or more great hiking opportunities in each topo, so my choice for each topo is somewhat arbitrary. I have generally chosen a destination or locale that has received little attention in the hiking literature, simply because as I hike into a trailless region, I feel a special sense of adventure. I can almost convince myself that I am an explorer, discovering new lands and new routes into them. Of course, that feeling of exploration can be sharply diminished with the discovery of a crumpled Bud Light can at the top of a steep slope - but in the more remote areas, there are far fewer encounters with un-recycled beer cans than along the heavily used routes in Tonto NF.

I am using a web-based delivery because I can add a substantial amount of graphics to each hike description - maps at several scales, jpeg photos of the trail, the destination, fauna and flora on the route, etc. In a printed book, this density of figures would cause the publication costs to rise to an astronomical value. But I am not publishing a hiking book for sale - I am assembling this e-book for my own amusement and I intend to distribute it for free.

It will also be a work-in-progress. That is, I am going to list all of the Tonto NF hikes below, but activate the links as I complete the hikes. This may take two or more years to complete - but I can add chapters to this e-book on the fly. I can even amend or update the chapters too. I don't believe I should wait until 2002 or beyond to publish a printed book with limited graphics and descriptions, when I can utilize the web right now. Again, I am not interested in carrying out this project on a for-profit basis - so e-publishing makes sense to me.

However, I still view these hike descriptions as my intellectual property. And even though I am giving unfettered access to these descriptions, I feel that anyone who uses these descriptions (in other documents, for example) should give me credit. Anything less would be plagiarism.

The Topo Maps and the Hikes