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JAWBONE WINDMILL
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| Corral at the Jawbone Windmill site |
Words on maps can be both enticing and deceiving. While indispensable for navigation, the two-dimensional limitations of maps can’t touch the experience of walking in the spaces they represent.
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| Bill Williams Mountain on the center horizon |
Take for instance Jawbone Windmill, a nondescript line item that appears on the Coconino National Forest map. A dot in the landscape 15 miles east of Camp Verde, the name stokes curiosity.
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| Water tank at the Jawbone Windmill site |
The moniker oozes a vaguely carnivorous mood rife with scattered bones, roaming livestock and skulking wildlife, all sustained by a wind turbine pumping life-sustaining water. How can this enticing destination not be explored? The go-see trek uses Forest Road 9243C, a rough two-track, that starts at a dirt parking apron on State Route 260.
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| A mesquite tree on the high meadow |
While the hike to the site is just under 4 miles round trip, the undulating road’s dips and climbs add up to over 1,100 feet of accumulated elevation change--another fact not easily apparent on maps.
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| Thirteenmile Rock Butte on right |
Immediately past the roadside gate, FR9243C crosses paths with the General George Crook Trail #130.
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| A steep incline in FR9243C |
The unsigned crossroad parallels the highway and is part of the historic military supply route that runs for miles across Central Arizona. But that’s a trip for another day. For this hike, continue straight ahead as the road bends east and then north on its way into the hilly landscape.
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| Yucca frame views on the high meadow |
The prominent 5,515-foot flat-topped profile of Thirteenmile Rock Butte and its companion 5,283-foot unnamed pointy peak stand out to the east over the first quarter mile. The easy start, which also passes by a rustic metal water tank, is soon disrupted with the first of several steep descents along the jumbled, juniper-lined road. But not before giving up sweeping vistas of the Verde Valley, Bradshaw Mountains and the stony gorge of West Clear Creek. On clear days, Bill Williams Mountain in Kaibab National Forest can be sighted on the far northwest horizon.
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| The dry basin of Wire Corral water hole |
At the 0.4-mile point at the bottom of a ravine, a faint dirt spur road heads off to the left. This leads to the Wire Corral water hole. Dry as a bone—and littered with actual bones—the tiny earthen-dam-backed reservoir is a reminder that Arizona is in long-term drought cycle. Domestic livestock and native wildlife depend on these created catchments for survival.
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| View of the winding road from near the trailhead |
Although we cannot control the precipitation needed to replenish them, we can make a difference by donating to the Arizona Game & Fish Department’s Send Water program (link below) to help fill and maintain 3,000 water holes across the state. It’s an easy way to help ensure wildlife survival.
Beyond the of basin of bones, the road makes another vertical assault, this time on the edge of a gorge overlooking the community of Clear Creek. The ankle-twisting haul tops out on a large high-desert meadow where mesquite, yuccas, agave and cacti frame some of the widest panoramas of the hike. After a few hundred yards of painless walking, the road plunges again to where a major drainage bisects it at the 1.6-mile point.
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| Mingus Mountain viewed fro FR9243C |
Here, a side road veers off to the left. The unsigned route leads to the mystery on the map—Jawbone Windmill. At just over 0.2-mile in length, the road makes a mild descent to the weedy local. In the middle of shadeless folds of hills, a rusty water tank stands among encroaching catclaw.
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| Bolts on the Jawbone water tank |
There’s no windmill. A concrete trough, foundations, decaying corrals and piles of pipes, sheet metal and random parts contribute to a curious array of detritus. An adjacent water hole is dry.
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| Faint road on left leads to the windmill site |
Cracked mud enshrines the footprints of deer, bobcats, skunk and cattle that came to drink from residual pools left from sporadic rains.
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| Gate at the trailhead on State Route 260 |
Despite the dismal water situation, this is beautiful country. Mountain peaks soar over the weather-raved remains, scrub jays screech from pinon pines and in the gulch that empties into the water hole, a family of deer graze before disappearing quietly into the scrub.
LENGTH: 3.8 miles round trip
RATING: moderate
ELEVATION: 4,367 – 4,698 feet (1,128 feet of elevation change)
GETTING THERE:
From Interstate 17 in Camp Verde, travel 15 miles east (toward Payson) on State Route 260 to the parking turnouts at milepost 233. Hike begins at the FR9243C gate.
Arizona Game & Fish Send Water Program:
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