Canyoneer Upper Salome Creek (The Grotto) Tonto National Forest, AZ

Apr 19, 2022 — Salome Creek houses some incredible polished granitic features, creating completely unexpected playgrounds in this otherwise hilly, brushy, remote terrain of central Arizona. A couple of years ago we did the fun and easily accessible Lower Salome Creek (The Jug), but this outing would be a much more committing endeavor. This route visits the upper reaches of Salome Creek via a series of flowing drainages deep within the Salome Wilderness. I believe "The Grotto" is the name for a large room toward the end of the technical portion, but there are a ton of gorgeous water-carved miracles before getting there.

Hikers can reach the top of a waterfall that I believe is known as "Hells Hole" within Workman Creek (more about this troublesome waterfall later). While this waterfall is pretty, getting here without technical gear requires 7+ miles one way along the Hell's Hole Trail #284, and the intrepid hiker can continue with some bushwhacking and a scary down-climb to reach the junction of Workman Creek and Salome Creek, the very bottom of the extended technical narrows. It would be a lot of work with minimal payoff, in my opinion. So really, access to "The Grotto" is limited to those with canyoneering knowledge. However, as gorgeous as the technical portions of The Grotto are, it's fairly short and requires a notable amount of tedious trail-less hiking. I recommend going into this outing with the mindset that it's a wilderness adventure with some technical rappels, rather than thinking of it as a typical fun canyoneering route. Fortunately there's a lot of interesting stuff to see on the approach and return, so it's not like you're doing a bunch of boring miles just for the technical part. I would argue that if you're not a fan of rock-hopping for miles through creekbeds then this won't be a fun day for you. That all being said, my mind was completely blown by Upper Salome Creek, and it was an excellent day trip through rarely-visited, rugged terrain.

This route is generally completed as a loop that begins at the Reynolds Trailhead, then heads north along a series of trails and/or dirt roads to reach where we parked. We decided to try to save some time by setting up a shuttle, not knowing how long the day would be. Ultimately I'd recommend not doing the shuttle unless you have two very burly vehicles or ATVs, even though it saves about 6 miles and 800 vertical gain. I had to drive very slowly with my Crossover, and I barely made it. I was concerned for my tires the whole time and had to engage 4WD twice to get over some bigger boulders. We probably didn't save any time since obviously we had to drive the road three times total in order to set the shuttle up. I would have preferred to have just done the damn loop, and stated as much every time my car bottomed out. I don't have the information regarding the loop route, but I'm sure you can find that info elsewhere. If you do want to set up the shuttle like we did, park the first vehicle at the Reynolds Trailhead, then head north along AZ-288. Turn left here (33.91582, -110.95146), where the crux of the drive can be found about a quarter mile into this road. Turn left here (33.92336, -110.97604) and ascend a pretty steep portion of poor road. The road eases up a bit once you get to the top of the hill. After descending and continuing southwest for a while, turn right here (33.90156, -110.99862) and follow the fence line to where the road gets too narrow to drive farther, which is where we parked.

We set out on foot from our parking spot along the dirt road and left it when the road started to ascend away from the Park Creek drainage. The first third of the miles for the route are pretty much all within the trail-less creek bed of Park Creek. Along the way we encountered all sorts of cool rock formations and different types of rock layers that made the geologist in Matt a bit giddy and the photographer in me clicking away. There are two rappels early in the drainage that we were able to bypass using a Class 2/3 gully for each, but a 40-ish foot cliff band about halfway down Park Creek forced us to take out our gear for this one nuissance rappel.

As we neared the mouth of Park Creek, the rock transitioned to granite and we were treated to some pretty formations and minor narrows with small pools. Shortly after the granite popped in we found ourselves at what we thought (at the time) was the highlight of the outing, a rappel into a large, deep pool with a glorious arch hovering above it. The rappel is only about 50 feet off a rusty old piton, and then another rappel of about the same length leads out of the pool and into Salome Creek. The arch and pool are very cool, but it was a short section and over far too quickly. Spoiler: this was not the highlight of the day. 

We took a quick side-trip north within Salome Creek to see a small waterfall before starting the trudge down the drainage. I chose to take off my wetsuit here since we wouldn't be wading again until the narrows, which was a bit over a mile away. There was a lot of rock-hopping to contend with, as well as plenty of little waterfalls and more fun rock features. Eventually the granite emerged again, and we knew this signaled we must be approaching the more extended technical portion of Salome Creek. Sure enough, the watercourse dropped into an abrupt section of slick granite covered in algae and with water-stained trickles. Small, deep pools and a short slide led through this portion without any ropes and a final slide dropped us into a massive swimmer.

Past the narrows the canyon widens, creating a wide halfpipe-like feature at the base of the tall canyon walls. A couple of short down-climbs and swimmers led to an interesting simul-rappel. A large hump of granite pokes out enough to create a spot to lasso a rope around and rappel with a buddy, or meat anchor/belay each other. The rappel ended in another long swimmer that passes under a boulder leaning against the canyon wall.

An avoidable pool and some scrambling on massive granitic boulders took us to the last rappel, a 50-foot drop into gorgeous room with a deep pool and subsequent short swimmer, the feature known as "The Grotto". Past here was a Class 3 down-climb (or jump, or handline) into another extended swimmer. A few hundred feet got us to the final obstacle within Upper Salome Creek, a fun slide into yet another deep pool. We had made it to the junction with Workman Creek.

It might be tempting to take off your wetsuits, but don't make the same mistake we did. Additionally, it might feel like all the burly stuff for the day is over, but that's far from the case. Workman Creek begins with lots of boulder-hopping (and poision ivy), plus various other obstacles. Shortly after starting up Workman Creek, we passed through multiple thigh-deep pools and even another short swimmer. The issue with ascending Workman Creek is that it reaches the base of an impassable waterfall, which seems to be listed from some sources online as "Hells Hole". Although pretty, Hells Hole Falls is certainly inconvenient. I highly recommend looking for easy scrambles to escape Workman Creek's right wall shortly after starting within its confines. Other trip reports mentioned a low Class 5 option, but we were able to locate a Class 4 climb a hundred feet or so before reaching Hells Hole Falls. The scramble only lasted about 20 feet, and then steep Class 2 continues through brush to a social trail roughly 200 feet above Workman Creek. The social trail dropped us back into Workman Creek, this time above the falls.

We continued through the watercourse until reaching a reddish, short narrow section. We had two options here: continue ascending through Workman Creek, which meant putting out wetsuits back on and hoping there weren't any significant obstacles to contend with; or, we could use a faint social trail on the right. We chose the latter, though in hindsight I wish we had more time and could have continued through Workman Creek proper. I'm pretty sure this canyon would go withouth too much difficulty, and from above it looked quite pretty. The social trail was overall pretty good and had cairns leading through narrow tunnels of scrub oak and along the rim of Workman Creek. After a bit under a mile the social trail seemed to end at a cliff, but some Class 2/3 brought us to higher ground and away from the cliffs before dropping us back into the Workman Creek drainage where campfire rings marked the start of the official Hell's Hole Trail.

Happy to be on an official trail, we started up the many switchbacks that ascended the south side of Workman Creek. Aside from some encroaching brush, the Hell's Hole Trail was in great shape and easy to follow. The trail ascends about 1200 feet before meeting the Boyer Cabin Trail #148 at a junction. Sticking to the Hells's Hole Trail, we descended east back into Workman Creek before making a final 500 foot ascent to a minor saddle and subsequent descent back to the Reynolds Trailhead, where our second car was parked. The trail is a pleasant way to finish off the miles after all the rock-hopping. While the first half of the trail had great views, the second half is a more tame experience with forested views of the surrounding hills.