June 8, 2023 – For three hours I drove from San Carlos, Arizona, on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation to the Black River Crossing. It was 45 miles of axle-busting dirt road, and I was glad to finally reach my destination and get out of the truck. My purpose for the drive was simple: hike from the crossing downstream to the confluence of the Black and White Rivers – the very start of the Salt River.
But that hike would have to wait until tomorrow because it was getting late in the afternoon. So, I made camp up on the ridge above the Black River, away from a few other campers and the mosquitos. The ridge was covered in juniper, scrub oak, and cat claw. Cacti were here, too: yucca, prickly pear, and the occasional century plant.
After making camp, I inspected the river to see what kind of hike I had in store the following day. The river was clear and warm, a beautiful freestone stream with large smooth boulders on the bottom. It was surrounded by steep, red canyon walls on all sides. I knew immediately the hike down to the confluence was going to be a bit of a scramble and would entail several river crossings.
The next morning, I got up early, made a fire, and drank coffee. I cleaned up some nearby toilet paper left behind by campers before me: properly crapping in the woods is a lost art. Then I packed my fly rod, cameras, and lunch into my backpack and headed downstream. I didn’t intend to fish, but I took my rod just in case.
I zigzagged my way down the canyon, crossing the river several times when the canyon walls closed off my current heading. For three hours I hiked. At times I felt like I was roller skating on bowling balls as I stumbled over the smooth, round river rock. At other times the cat claw tore at my shins. But, by and large, the hike wasn’t too bad, and I enjoyed the morning sun reflecting the canyon walls on the river.
After nearly five miles, I emerged from the Black River canyon on a little gravel bar that equally separated the Black and White Rivers: a little peninsula at the very start of the Salt River. I shed my backpack and pulled out my camera. I photographed the confluence as well as the two rivers converging here. Then I took out some tobacco I had brought along for the occasion and made an offering to all three rivers.
I ate my lunch on the gravel bar and then crossed over the Black River to walk down the Salt itself. A few yards downstream from the confluence was the Salt’s first rapids, and I was reminded of the raft trip I made in late March. These rapids appeared to be Class III. I didn’t know their name, so I dubbed them Confluence Rapids. Perhaps it was a little presumptuous of me to give them a name as I was surely not the first person to ever see them.
After photographing the rapids, I turned upstream and headed back. No sooner had I started back than I noticed the desiccated remains of the fillets of several catfish, carp, and one snake – the leftovers of an apparently hungry fishing party. As it had for millennia, the Salt River had once again provided nourishment to humans.
On the way back to camp, I realized that in one way I had just completed my goal of seeing the Salt River from beginning to end. But I knew there was much more I needed to see and do. There were places in in the middle that I still had to visit, especially Apache Lake, Mormon Flat Dam, Horse Mesa Dam, Granite Reef Diversion Dam, and the Verde River, the largest tributary of the Salt.
I found the beginning of the Salt River a beautiful, wild place with untamed, free-flowing rivers. Yet, I also found roads, trails, cattle guards, fences, and fire rings. And along with the built world came its trash: toilet paper, beer bottles, vapes, cans of bug spray, and empty bait boxes. I knew more research was needed if I was to ever understand the puzzle of the intersection of the natural environment with the built world.