By Allanna Jackson © October 1, 2013 & Sept 2022

Ghost of Coyote is one of the older trails in the White Mountain Trail System. It is functionally an all-purpose trail with portions overlapping the Maverick Motorized trail and several dirt roads. The only trailhead for Ghost of Coyote is beside Burton Road. The official trailhead is not the only place to access this trail.

October 1, 2013, was clear, sunny, and warm with just enough breeze to be pleasant. After breakfast, I trailered Cinnamon out to a large turnaround area beside a forest road on the left side of the Pinedale-Taylor Road at mile 3.

I saddled up and we set off, leaving the trailer at 11:30 am. We went through a gate beside the road, then around a fence, and across a shallow canyon to the Maverick Motorized trail. We followed the Maverick trail as it wandered parallel to the paved road to its crossing of the Pinedale-Taylor Road at Capps Ranch Road where it merges with Ghost of Coyote near marker G27. The two trails and the road are all on the same route for half a mile before Ghost of Coyote diverges onto a single-lane dirt road near G30. These trails go around private land within the Sitgreaves National Forest.

We went clockwise around the trail, going up the marker numbers. This area was devastated by the Rodeo wildfire in 2002. Eleven years later, the damage and forest recovery were both evident. The trail follows single-track dirt roads along the fence line of the private land then wanders northward through Juniper Forest. We paused to admire the nearly full stock pond about 2 miles from where I’d parked the trailer. Cinnamon wasn’t interested in drinking from it. A large bird watched us from the dead top of a tree. Shortly after passing the stock pond the trail turned east and climbed some hills into an area the Rodeo fire skipped.

At the fence corner near G37, the Ghost of Coyote trail abruptly turns south onto a single-track road beside a fence to the junction with the shortcut at G40. Looking east from here offers views of the White Mountains. Cinnamon perked up when she recognized the junction from previous rides. We took the shortcut straight across from G40 to G10.

Cinnamon looked east across a wash at a gate and route we’d taken previously, then willingly went down the road we were on instead, seeming to recognize it. I realized I hadn’t seen any trail markers in a while so we turned around. I pulled out my trail booklet to look up what the trail did while Cinnamon strolled back the way we’d come. We’d missed the junction where the trail almost doubles back on itself when the shortcut meets the main trail.

We easily found the junction again, but where was the trail? I scanned the area and finally spotted tracks of a shod horse heading off through the grass on a faint single-track trail. We followed the tracks and found the blue trail diamonds I was looking for.

Here Ghost of Coyote finally abandoned the roads to become a truly non-motorized single-track trail across the hills. There was such an abundance of grass and flowers the trail was almost invisible as it wended its way through the burnt tree skeletons.

The trail continued east across a ridge into another canyon, crossed it, then briefly converged with a hint of a road, which we followed until it turned into a four-wheeler track going straight up a hill. Cinnamon was getting tired but she willingly bushwacked back to the last trail marker I’d seen and we found the trail again. It entered an undamaged patch of Ponderosa Pines and crossed a fence line. We were now between G16 and G20, on the south side of the private land holdings we’d gone around the north side of earlier. The horse gate in the fence was open. I rode Cinnamon through and she earned a treat helping me close it.

The trail turned briefly south along the fence before turning east again, skirting the edge between the burned and unburned forest. The next gate was closed. Cinnamon earned another treat helping me with that gate.

Another undamaged stand of Ponderosa Pines and a small canyon that was full of green grass, not water, offered welcome shade so I stopped for lunch. Cinnamon grazed a little bit, listened a lot, and gnawed on some sticks and duff along with eating the treat I gave her.

After lunch, we followed the wood posts marking the trail route across a half mile of meadow. Cinnamon paused a couple of times to study the traffic on Highway 260. I assured her that the traffic wasn’t coming where we were and we weren’t going there. Cinnamon calmly resumed strolling along the trail.

At the edge of the meadow, the trail entered another patch of Ponderosa Pines, crossed another small canyon, then followed the edge of the canyon north to complete the Ghost of Coyote loop. We could see down the canyon to the bridge for Pinedale-Taylor Road. Cinnamon looked west several times as if she knew we were only half a mile from the trailer. But the trail turned east at G23 to follow a smaller canyon for a short distance before turning north along the fence to Capps Ranch Road.

In the middle of this smaller canyon, a Great Horned Owl flew to a pine tree near the trail and perched briefly. I had my camera in hand and turned on, but the owl flew away before I could photograph it.

Only 50 feet from Capps Ranch Road the trail goes through another wire gate near the cattle guard. Cinnamon knew where we were, but after 9 miles on the trail, she was tired. We retraced our steps down the Maverick Motorized trail to the canyon, across the dry wash, and around the fence arriving back at the trailer at about 2:45 pm. I offered Cinnamon the bucket of water I’d brought for her. She sniffed it but didn’t drink. I trailered Cinnamon home, where she took a couple of long drinks from her familiar water tank before I fed both horses. It was another lovely ride on the White Mountain Trail system in gorgeous weather.