Visiting Fossil Creek soon? Know what you're getting into

Mike Roseman likes to talk about the resilience of Fossil Creek.

He can show you where trees have rebounded, where native fish swim in clear, deep pools. But Roseman, a river ranger for Coconino National Forest, doesn't have much time to talk about these things. There's too much work to do.

He's out on the trail, imploring passing hikers: Pack out what you pack in. Don't wander without water. Know where you're going.

Not everyone listens.

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Every weekend, hundreds of people arrive at both ends of this stretch of creek about 80 miles northeast of Phoenix, in cars not quite up to the rugged road that leads here, in shoes not quite up to the demands of the trail. They toss empty beer cans on the ground, light fires, break signs, ignore warnings. They don't seem to know where they are, or how far it is to where they are going. And some of them get lost or injured along the way.

Roseman, who works as a river guide when he's not working with the Forest Service, takes it all in stride. By the time the trail meets the creek, he has picked up half a bag of trash.

He is quick to note that most visitors are responsible and capable. "There are plenty of people who really care, and treat the place well," he says.

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But with hundreds of visitors a day flocking to the popular recreation area on hot summer weekends, the Forest Service seems to be fighting a losing battle. By next summer, visitors will probably need to make a reservation to visit Fossil Creek, Forest Service officials say. A permit system may follow.

Before he can even make a check of campsites, Roseman comes across a family of seven, with girls ranging from 5 to 10 years old. The oldest, Cheyenne Moody, has broken her arm, and Roseman stops to lend a hand.

The early days

For centuries, Fossil Creek ran free.

It was home to beavers, otters and native fish. Black hawks nested along the creek, the roundtail chub swam in its waters, which maintained a temperature of about 70 degrees. The stream came bubbling out of springs below the confluence of Sandrock and Calf Pen canyons, some 43 cubic feet per second, a constant flow in a land prone to seasonal drought. As more springs fed into the creek, its flow increased.

The stream is rich in calcium carbonate, a mineral that covers objects that gather in the streambed — rocks, logs, sticks, leaves. Over time, the mineral hardens around these objects into a substance called travertine, layer upon layer, forming small dams, which create clear, deep pools. Fossil Creek is considered the fourth largest travertine system in North America.

In 1907, Arizona found a new use for Fossil Creek — hydroelectric power. The steady flow meant the water could be harnessed to operate electrical turbines. The power fed mines and small communities such as Jerome, Clarkdale, Crown King and would eventually provide power for Phoenix.

The project was ambitious for its time. No roads led to the creek and the closest railroad was in Mayer. About 600 men, mostly Mexicans and Apaches who lived in the area, used 400 mules to pull more than 150 wagons. They hauled materials over rugged terrain, built 40 miles of roads, a dam, a power plant, then another.

The early stages of the project were overseen by a woman named Iva Tutt. The project went through various funding and management changes and eventually fell to the ownership of Arizona Power Company.

The water was transferred from the stream to a system of flumes, tunnels and pipes made of wood, steel and concrete. The Childs-Irving facility was the first power plant in Arizona, but it came with a cost. The dam slowed Fossil Creek to a fraction of its natural flow. Native fish populations declined and non-native fish entered the ecosystem. Fossil Creek became a very different place.

The power lit up Jerome's saloons, powered mines and streetlights during the boom years. Over time, Phoenix emerged as an economic powerhouse and Jerome's copper mines closed. Wood flumes were replaced by steel, APC became Arizona Public Service, which built newer, bigger plants. The little power plants that relied on Fossil Creek's flow still operated, but they cranked out a fraction of the power that central Arizona needed.

In the early 1990s, APS intended to renew its dam permit. But the world had changed since the little power plants were built at Irving and Childs. Tens of thousands of dams across the country provided power, flood control and other benefits, but some of them were becoming outdated. As scientists learned more about riparian ecosystems, there was talk about dismantling dams. When conservation groups approached APS executives about decommissioning the dam at Fossil Creek, they listened. The power plants created just 7 megawatts of power at full strength, less than 1 percent of the company's total output, said Phil Smithers of APS.

In 2004, APS agreed to let its license to operate the dam lapse. The following year, flowing water returned to Fossil Creek. Smithers supervised a crew of about a dozen men to dismantle what hundreds had built.

The area had not seen many visitors before the decommissioning. The two canyons leading into the creek had been named a wilderness area in 1984, and Congress named Fossil Creek a Wild and Scenic River in 2008. Fossil Creek is located along the northern reaches of the rugged Mazatzal Mountains, a remote area with one of the largest wilderness areas in the state.

But word started to get out about a place with water, in the high desert. The man-made impoundments had been taken down, but before long, Fossil Creek faced a new human threat: thousands of visitors a year.

Where accidents happen

It takes about 10 minutes for Roseman to splint Cheyenne Moody's arm and put it in a sling. He and Christina Bentley, a recreation technician with the Forest Service, round up the family, get them some water and get started up the trail. Roseman calls for a local Search and Rescue team, out of Strawberry, to meet them.

Roseman's first aid has helped relieve the pain, and before long, Cheyenne gathers her strength and hikes ahead with her father. Roseman walks about another mile or two with the rest of the family, and, satisfied they are hydrated, and that members of the Search and Rescue team will be along any time, turns around.

Rescues are typical at Fossil Creek Trail. Accidents happen, and some visitors are simply unlucky.

But many others are also unprepared. Some have no idea what they are getting into.

There was a time that one road, Forest Road 708, led from Strawberry to Arizona 260, near Camp Verde, but a section of the road was closed about four years ago when boulders started falling from a cliff and an engineer ruled the road unsafe.

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Today, there are two primary ways to reach Fossil Creek.

One is Fossil Creek Trail, near Strawberry. The trail drops about 1,500 feet in four miles. After that, it takes more walking along the stream bed to get to the creek's main flow, which is what most people are looking for. With the hike back up, it works out to about a 10-mile day.

"So many people end up here and they think that Google brought 'em to the right spot," Bentley said during a hike down the trail. They think the water is a short walk away. It's not. She offers visitors maps, which are up to date, "and they're still looking at their phone."

The Forest Service posts signs about the long hike and people ignore the signs. It puts information up on its web site, sends out rangers to talk to people. But the message is not getting through. People still set out to hike about 10 miles in the high desert, with no water. They wear flip flops, which break on the rugged terrain. They carry big coolers, or no food at all.

After a few hours of swimming, people are tired. They have five miles to hike out with no food or water. By this time, flip flops get lost or broken. They get cuts and blisters on their feet. Search and Rescue brings water, administers first aid and repairs footwear with duct tape as best it can. On a day a few days after Moody broke her arm, the Strawberry team answered three calls on Fossil Creek Trail.

One main attraction on the creek is the waterfall, the one a lot of these visitors have seen on YouTube. They fire up Google Maps, the GPS, and go. But the maps are wrong. GPS is wrong. On the Camp Verde side, people follow their GPS and drive right past the creek and up a hill, Roseman said. A few have rolled off the road, dangerously close to the edge of a cliff.

"We've had really close calls with a lot of cars going off the edge," Roseman said.

For a long time, he'd see people on the trail, and they'd say: "Where's the waterfall? Where's the waterfall? Now it's, where's the toilet bowl?"

That's the other main attraction on the creek. The toilet bowl, about 5 miles from either trailhead, is a swirling pool of water that can be tricky to escape. Roseman said he's pulled people out of it, then watched them curl up in the fetal position, whimpering about a helicopter rescue. He settles them down, gives them water and gets them walking.

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Where crowds wait

The other approach to Fossil Creek is a twisty, rocky, gravel road that begins near Camp Verde and leads right to the creek — the part of FR 708 that is still intact.

Here, the Forest Service has a different set of challenges. It is only about a mile to the waterfall from the parking lot, if you can find a place to park. But there are only so many parking places, only so many campsites downstream from the parking lots, only so much room on the creek.

Rangers set up road blocks to keep the number of visitors between 150 and 200, and reach that number quickly. They spend most of their day managing the lots, manning roadblocks, patrolling campsites, picking up trash or directing people to other areas.

"We got here at 8:30 and that parking lot was already a mess," said river ranger Dex Allen. He estimates that hundreds of people visit the creek on a busy weekend.

"It's an organized chaos," said Francisca Adrian, wilderness, trails, and rivers coordinator for the Red Rock Ranger District. "Before it was just chaos. … we've eliminated a lot of that with the capacity program. If we didn't do that it would just be a disaster down there."

Allen, who has patrolled the creek for 11 years, said his crews put out more than 250 fires in a season. There are several reasons for the campfire ban. One is that people were cutting branches off of live trees instead of burning dead wood. Another is that people don't put their fires out, which leads to the third reason: Fossil Creek would be a difficult place to evacuate in a wildfire.

"There's only one way into Fossil Creek and there's only one way out, ..." Allen said. "It's a fire trap."

The road is narrow, which is why the Forest Service tries to keep it clear, at least clear enough for an ambulance to get in and out.

Signs are printed in English, Spanish and symbols. No parking. No fires. No glass. No littering.

"We've signed the heck out of that area. So people do know," Adrian said. "People know, it's just that they don't care. It's all about me, me, me."

Still, most visitors get it right. As Allen patrols the campsites, he finds a few problems, but most of the sites are fairly clean. He gets out to talk to a couple of campers and asks if they have any trash bags. They don't.

"I hand out trash bags like candy," he said.

The entire time, Allen keeps radio contact with his teams in the field. One of them is stationed at a roadblock near SR 260, where FR 708 begins. There is frequently a line of unhappy people there who have been waiting for hours, Allen said. Another team is stationed at a roadblock closer to the creek.

Allen finishes his rounds through the campsites and heads back to the main parking lot.

"I always feel good when I go through the campsites and I don't get out my ticket book," Allen says. "That's a great day."

Allen hopes that the reservation system will improve traffic and parking problems.

"I don't want to be heavy-handed and hand people tickets because they parked in the wrong place. ... I want people to have fun at the creek."

Where something survives

Years ago, when Roseman was contemplating a career with the Forest Service, he signed on with a fire and recreation crew in the Tonto Basin. Then he got a chance to run some Class 5 rapids on the Arkansas River, and got sidetracked.

"It took me a decade to get back to the Forest Service," he said. He now splits his time between running rivers and ranger duty, and said he passed up a season at the Grand Canyon this summer to help save Fossil Creek.

Much of what the stream has gone through can be seen right from the site of the old dam.

The place as it was a thousand years ago: a travertine pool where watercress grows and monkey flowers bloom. Trees that regrew quickly where there had been no trees — alder, sycamore, walnut, willow and boxelder. Roseman estimates they grow about six feet a year.

Also the place as it was a century ago: a foundation where the dam master's house once stood.

And as it is today: a crowd of people milling about by a pool at the base of the toilet bowl, swimming and lying in the sun.

A pile of trash, 24 feet from a sign that tells people to pack out their trash.

The Forest Service was formed to manage timber and watersheds, mining and other uses. Recreation is one of many activities allowed in the forest, but it's only one of several balls that the agency must juggle.

"The Forest Service system of multiple use is great, but protecting a wild and scenic river is tough," Roseman said.

Roseman, who has spent much of his life chasing whitewater, is not against having having fun in the wilderness, or enjoying a beer by a campfire — "it's part of the culture," he said. He understands that people won't learn outdoor ethics if they stay indoors, and salutes the spirit of adventure he sees on the trail.

"You certainly don't want to discourage that. We just want people to be responsible with their freedom, and we want people to pass on what they learn."

As Roseman starts back to camp, he is still able to look around and appreciate his surroundings. The last rays of the sun lighting up the canyon. The call of a black hawk. All day, he has noted the different types of vegetation along the trail, the buzz of cicadas in the trees. He comments on the flow of the stream. Its deep springs, the travertine rebuilding in the stream bed.

If the place is handled carefully, he thinks, it can survive.

"This creek," he said, "is really resilient."

Reach the reporter at ron.dungan@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4847.