Summer temperatures regularly exceed 100 degrees F. No water and little shade are available for the first 3.75 miles of the trail. The trail offers a remote, backcountry experience and is steep and extremely hot during the summer, but rewards visitors with access to one of Arizona’s most spectacular riparian areas. The trail begins at an elevation of 5,700 feet on Deadman Mesa near the town of Strawberry and descends 1,500 feet over 4 miles into the Fossil Creek canyon. The Bob Bear Trail provides access to the headwaters of the Fossil Creek Wild and Scenic River and the Fossil Springs Wilderness on the Tonto and Coconino National Forests. We've sounded an urgent call for improved management of Fossil Creek by federal agencies as visitation to the area has significantly increased, threatening some of the recent gains, and we'll continue to work to ensure that this unique and beautiful waterway - along with all the species it contains - is restored to its former state of health.The Bob Bear Trailhead is accessed via Fossil Creek Rd from the town of Strawberry. The Center has also worked to protect the habitat of the loach minnow and spikedace, two threatened fishes that had been extirpated from Fossil Creek, and in 2007 our efforts resulted in the momentous reintroduction of the species to the area. Two years later, the administration's decision to allow that grazing was overturned in court. In 2009, we filed an administrative appeal and a notice of intent to sue over the Obama administration's failure to protect endangered wildlife - notably the Chiricahua leopard frog - and water quality in the Fossil Creek watershed by allowing livestock grazing on 42,000 acres southeast of Camp Verde. Under the terms of the coalition's agreement, the Irving and Childs power plants were decommissioned in 2005, and this extraordinary wild place was planned for restoration by 2010. OUR CAMPAIGNĪfter years of grassroots activity, legal notices and intense negotiations, the Center and our coalition partners, including the Yavapai-Apache Nation, prompted the 1999 decision to lower the diversion dam and close the environmentally destructive power plants that took Fossil Creek water away from the stream. Legislation to designate Fossil Creek as a government-recognized "wild and scenic" river was included in the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, which passed in March of that year, making Fossil Creek the second Arizona waterway with such a designation - the first being a segment of the Verde River (which includes the confluence of Fossil Creek). Native vegetation is regenerating as well, once more providing prime habitat for dozens of unique southwestern plants and animals. As flows have been restored at Fossil Creek, limestone is naturally depositing once again, creating deep pool and waterfall habitat for several species of imperiled fish - and making the creek the best native-fish restoration area in the state. Less than 1 percent of Arizona's landscape is riparian habitat, and more than 90 percent of native riparian areas have been lost or heavily degraded. Today, the power complex is closed, but the environmental damage it inflicted has yet to disappear.įossil Creek represents a singular opportunity to fully restore a riparian ecosystem in the Southwest. It also flows at an amazing 410 gallons of water per second, and for nearly 100 years was the site of a dam providing power to Arizona Public Service's Childs and Irving power plants - which significantly dried up all but about a half-mile of Fossil Creek's entire 14.5-mile length. Fossil Creek, a perennial stream in central Arizona's Mogollon Rim country, hosts a variety of rare and imperiled species and boasts stunning waterfalls, deep pools, abundant riparian vegetation, and colorful wildflowers.
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