Page 53 - Walks In The Black Range

13. Picket Spring & Goat Ranch Picket Spring
Picket Spring is an excavated spring protected by a corrugated steel pipe (photos to the left). At the time of the survey water was standing in the spring. A stick was placed in the spring to allow creatures of various sorts to extricate themselves if they fell in - thus avoiding spring contamination and a needless loss of life. The area around the spring is fenced but the fence is not maintained allowing easy access to the spring by livestock and large native species. The water tank associated with this spring was downstream, in the stream bed. The water tank and hose/pipes from the spring are not maintained.
Picket Spring is depicted on USGS topographic maps, although its exact placement on the maps may be slightly less than accurate.
To access the “trail head” drive north out of Kingston on Italian (Water). This is a wash and animal track walk so expect some bushwhacking.
Picket Spring is located in Picket Spring Canyon about 2 miles northeast of Kingston.
Goat Ranch
The trail head and the first part of this walk is the same as for Picket Spring. To reach the trailhead, we travelled north on Italian (Water) Street out of Kingston, on the east side of the Black Range. At the same trailhead that we used for the Pickett Spring walk, we departed in a generally northeasterly direction along an old trail bed. The trail is indistinct and overgrown in sections but is generally easy to follow until you reach the saddle which overlooks the Reed Goat Ranch, at which point it seems to disappear. The trail is rocky in places, presenting opportunities for twisted ankles and hiding places for various rattlesnake species.
At the parking area, which is just beyond a cattle guard, walk down to the stream bed. Very quickly, an indistinct track begins to ascend the slope on the north side of the stream bed. The walk as it is shown here is about 1.3 miles each way. The trail is fairly flat, see gradient chart below, but climbs gently until it disappears at the saddle overlooking the Goat Ranch. The difference between the minimum and maximum elevation on the walk is only 300’, but this is a bit misleading. When you reach the saddle, the walk down the slope to the goat ranch is on a 15% grade.
This trail is one of the historical trails of the Black Range, it is not maintained by any entity. In the late 1890’s and early 1900’s this was the track used by people at the Reed Goat