South Fork
Monday, February 22nd, 2021: Chiricahuas, Hikes, South Fork, Southeast Arizona.
Last time I returned from the Chiricahuas, near sunset, I was driving up through the low pass through the Peloncillos when I glanced left at a small hollow in the granite cliffs and saw a stone man. The light was just right to highlight this small pinnacle with a spherical top. So this morning, on my way back, I stopped to photograph it. Unfortunately the light was wrong, but now I saw it had a companion on the left.
Our mountains had received a lot of snow last week, and I’d already fought my way through 14″ of powder to 7,400′ on my shorter midweek hike. So for today’s long day hike, I was looking for a trail that stayed well below 8,000′ and avoided north slopes. During earlier researches I’d seen that I could chain together three trails in the Chiricahuas to get plenty of distance at lower elevation, but I hadn’t tried that yet because it didn’t offer enough elevation gain to suit me. Today might be the right time.
It starts in the most famous part of the range: South Fork Canyon, which is ground zero for birders. This canyon suffered major erosion and debris flows after the 2011 Horseshoe 2 fire, so the bottom was full of logs, piles of pale rock, and erratic boulders carried down from above.
But much of the riparian forest is intact. I was strolling rapidly through the shade along a winding trail lined with leaf litter when I heard a rustling in the vegetation above the trail at my right. I stopped and turned and saw a sight so amazing that I was pretty much paralyzed.
A smallish hawk with a high-contrast banded tail – probably a Cooper’s – launched laboriously off the slope, only about 6′ above ground, carrying a full-grown reddish squirrel – probably the Mexican fox squirrel endemic to this range – dangling by its shoulders from the hawk’s claws, so that the hawk and its prey were both facing the same direction. The squirrel wasn’t struggling so it was probably either dead already or in shock.
The hawk continued slowly, carrying its prize past me at a distance of only about 8′, and steadily off into the distance between the trunks of the riparian forest. The weight of that hawk is virtually the same as the weight of a squirrel. That would be like me carrying someone my own weight, while flapping my wings.
I stared off into the distance for a minute or two, then continued following the newly re-routed trail upstream for two miles. Then I turned left onto a branch trail that climbed the steep eastern ridge out of the canyon. At a saddle where the trail crosses the crest is an outcrop of amazing bright red rock, probably volcanic tuff or conglomerate like most of the rock in this region.
Past the red rock saddle the trail enters a new landscape, hidden from below, surrounding a sort of hanging canyon. The 2011 fire made short, narrow runs into this canyon from the east, so the current vegetation is a mosaic. The whole area feels close, intimate, and shady.
After crossing the canyon, the trail switchbacks up to a higher saddle which represents a divide between the interior and exterior of the range. I’d seen footprints ahead of me on the trail going into this canyon, but I left them behind as I climbed, and as usual I was the first to complete this trail this season.
When I reached the high saddle at the divide, my cell phone made the incoming message sound. “Welcome!” said the text from Verizon. “You are now in Mexico. The following rates apply…”
I was a few miles southeast of where I’d previously hiked in this range, and from that saddle, my view was south, and what I saw really was the mountains of Mexico. My phone was now connected to a tower somewhere over the border.
The guy who monopolizes trail information for this range had reported this trail in “good” condition. But the next trail I planned to take, southwest from this saddle, was reported to be in “bad” condition. I’d already had to climb around a couple of badly eroded sections on the climb out of the canyon, so I was curious about what I would find ahead on the next trail.
The first challenge was finding the trail. Searching through the scrub in the saddle, I eventually came upon two old wooden signposts, with a dry-rotted, illegible trail sign at their feet. Ahead was a narrow gap between two shrubs that might be the trail.
In the event, this trail turned out to be really easy to follow. It lacked the big washouts of the earlier trail. Its only drawback was that it now seemed to be used only by game; most of it was narrow and banked, rather than flat, crossing loose gravel on steep slopes, which was made it hard on my vulnerable foot.
Traversing around the outside of a ridge, it eventually climbed to a still higher saddle which gave me a broad view of Horseshoe Canyon, a major canyon on the south side of the range, and Sentinal Peak, the southernmost peak in the range. And I saw more of Mexico.
I kept traversing past the saddle until I felt my time was up and I had to turn back. I figured I’d gone at least 7 miles already.
It was a long slog back. On the way up, I’d felt like this trail was in better shape than most, but with my sensitive foot, they all feel worse going down. According to the years-old GPS data of the trail guy, I hiked less than 14 miles round trip. But I was walking fast during the entire hike, and even discounting short breaks, it took me an hour longer than a 16-mile hike with similar elevation that I did last summer. So go figure.
Bushwhacking the Last Frontier
Monday, March 21st, 2022: Chiricahuas, Hikes, South Fork, Southeast Arizona.
It hurts to write this. Standing at my desk, with my laptop and papers raised on cardboard boxes because my back pain won’t let me sit, an ache throbs up the back of my legs, and I’m so exhausted I can barely think.
I’m not sure why – I’ve done much harder hikes than the one I did yesterday. It may be allergy – I had my first bad attack of the current season a few days ago, my eyes have ached and watered since, and a headache kept me awake much of last night. These things will pass.
I’d been wanting to get back to the range of canyons in Arizona near the Mexican border, but didn’t want to repeat the hikes I’d done there recently. I finally decided to try a trail I’d been avoiding because according to the description, most of it would be easy, and the rest might be impassable. I wanted to reach the crest, which would reward me with 4,000′ of elevation gain, but I was actually looking forward to some bushwhacking. It would be a final frontier of sorts – the last major trail on this side of the range that I hadn’t hiked yet.
Our weather was getting cooler, but under a clear, sunny sky at lower elevation than home, I hit the trailhead with my sweater off. Climbing up a long canyon with spectacular rock formations and exotic vegetation, it’s the most popular trail in the range, so there were 8 vehicles parked in addition to mine, but I knew most of them would be birders, confined to the first mile or so. And that’s what I found – I passed all eight groups, including many young people, in less than a mile and a half. Of all those parked at the trailhead, I was the only one actually hiking the trail.
Birders are seldom friendly – they view strangers as annoying interruptions in their competitive hobby. One older man was actually hostile – when I wished him a good morning, he scowled and said “Is it morning? I’m not so sure.” I checked my Arizona-adjusted watch and said we still had an hour and a half of morning left. His wife smiled but he kept scowling as I passed.
As I left them all behind, my sweat began attracting flies and I had to pull on the old head net.
The trail description claims it’s level for the first four miles, but I found that it climbed 1,100′ in that distance, which is hardly level. Being popular, it is much better maintained than trails back home, at least in the first few miles. Virtually all of it lies within federal wilderness. The rushing creek, draining from snow still clinging to the crest, is lined and clogged in many places with debris from floods after the 2011 wildfire, so the trail is occasionally diverted high upslope.
But I do love the riparian canopy here, visually dominated in winter by the leafless white sycamores, with oversize yuccas and agaves along the trail. The map and trail description mention an apple tree about three miles in from the trailhead, but I never found it, enjoying maples and dark groves of majestic cypress instead.
At the four-mile point I reached the noisy confluence of two creeks. The main stem came down from the right, draining the vast upper canyon whose rim I’ve hiked many times. But the trail continued straight up a side canyon. According to the trail description the next stretch was in worse condition, but I found that a lot of work had been put into logging, brushing, and grading it during recent months. It was very steep and much of it was rocky, but the only thing slowing me down was my stamina – I had to stop more often than usual to catch my breath.
One strange thing about this tributary creek was its color. Where it was rushing it looked clear, but where it pooled, it was a pale, opaque turquoise.
Narrow, hemmed in by cliffs, the side canyon climbed 1,500′ in the next two miles. Patches of snow still clung to slopes above, and I was excited when I reached a small stand of aspens.
But just beyond the aspen grove, the creek disappeared underground, and I emerged in a small basin where several side drainages converged. The maintained trail ended there, and the only thing that beckoned me forward was a pink ribbon above a brushy, trackless slope which had burned intensely in the old wildfire.
I followed a series of ribbons through the brush and bunchgrass for a few hundred yards, and came to a chaotic erosional gully choked with boulders and logs from above. The ribbons continued across it into a thicket, so I scrambled over, and began fighting my way through dense brush, much of it thorny locust, up the opposite slope in search of more ribbons. I’d brought the map with me but was trusting to the ribbons now.
Several hundred yards up this slope the ribbons ended, but the brush remained thick. High over my right shoulder I could see the snowy crest, still a thousand feet above, where I’d hoped to end my hike. But I wasn’t going to fight my way through locust all the way up there, and that log-and-boulder-choked gully would be no easier.
A more attainable goal loomed ahead of me: a lower ridgeline where I knew there was a trail I’d approached from the opposite direction more than a year ago. Somewhere in my current vicinity there was supposed to be a spur trail that led up there, but it seemed to be buried or hidden in thickets. I saw a minor spur of the mountain ahead of me, across a minor drainage, that was sparsely forested but showed no thickets, and might be a direct route to the ridge. Getting there was not easy – fighting through more thorns, climbing over logs, descending steep boulders, clawing my way up a loose slope – but as I approached, I saw a trail on that spur where no trail was supposed to be.
When I reached it I found it was just a game trail that quickly disappeared, and I found myself ascending a knife-edge ridge choked with sharp rock outcrops, random deadfall, and more thickets. Looking at the surrounding landscape, I saw I’d picked one of the more difficult routes to the high ridge, but I’d committed myself, so I kept climbing. After about 45 minutes I’d only gone about an eighth of a mile, but I suddenly emerged on the spur trail and felt I had a real chance at reaching the ridgetop.
I’d be cutting it close. Bushwhacking had used up a lot of time, and as usual I wanted to finish the hike in time for beer and burrito at the cafe. And although the spur trail had good tread, it was overgrown with thorns and blocked by huge logs and deep, debris-filled gullies. I even had to carefully cut steps across a long, steep patch of snow, where I found footprints from weeks or months ago, evidence there was somebody in these mountains as crazy as me.
Soon enough I reached the trail junction on the ridge, and got my reward – a new view to the southeast of the range and the mountains of Mexico beyond.
The wind was howling up there and I had to hurry back. I didn’t want to repeat that bushwhack and wondered if I might be better off taking the other trail back, but checking the map I could see that route would be at least a mile farther. I thought I might return on the spur trail as far as the tread lasted and see if I could find a shortcut to the main trail.
In the event, the spur trail disappeared high above that thicket where the ribbons had led me earlier. It ended at a sheer-sided gully ten feet deep, so I had to fight my way down through thorns to the big boulder-and-log-choked gully above my earlier crossing. This was as hard as any bushwhacking I’d done, but I finally reached the pink ribbons and the trackless traverse that led me to the small basin and the resumption of the maintained trail. I figured I now had just enough time to reach the cafe, if I walked fast down that steep trail.
I hadn’t seen or heard much wildlife on the way up, but just before reaching the confluence of creeks, I heard a sharp, catlike cry. Then, under the canopy of the lower canyon, two spotted towhees dashed into a bush at my right, then a woodpecker landed on a tree trunk at my left. Shortly after that I came upon a solitary whitetrail doe that merely sidestepped up the slope a few yards as I passed her.
Dark clouds had been blowing over. I finished my first beer while waiting for the burrito, then drank another half glass, so I had to stay in the motel that night. Heavy rain began to hammer the roof after dark.
In the morning, I saw a dusting of new snow on the upper slopes. Rain fell sporadically during the drive home, and it was actually snowing lightly when I entered my hometown.
Monday, August 28th, 2023: Chiricahuas, Hikes, South Fork, Southeast Arizona.
I’d been waiting all summer for the weather to cool off enough so I could hike the canyon trail over in Arizona that had finally been cleared. According to the forecast, it still wouldn’t be cool enough, but we’d been having monsoon weather for past week, and I was hoping I’d have cloud cover, and possibly even rain, in the afternoon, to cool things off.
Over the past four years, I’ve been exploring every trail that climbs from the accessible northeast basin of the range, through the wilderness area to the 9,000 foot crest. Every trail, that is, except this one – so this was now my holy grail.
I’d actually tried it a year and a half ago, and found the final 1.3 mile stretch seriously impassable. But a professional trail crew had finally cleared it this year – twelve years after the 2011 wildfire.
Not only would this complete my exploration of the northern canyons, but it would be the longest hike I’d ever done in this range. What limits me is the distance from home – the long drive means less hours available to hike. So today I would leave early.
About thirty miles south of town, a pronghorn buck crossed the highway in front of me. Hadn’t seen one for a few years – I took it as a good omen.
Despite the early start, air temperature was already in the 80s when I reached the 5,240 foot trailhead at 8:30 am. And despite our summer-long drought, and the fact that the creek started out bone-dry, I was soaked with sweat and swarmed by flies within the first mile. These northern canyons hold moisture – from our wet winter and a few rains in June – and unlike in our canyons back home, I found an impressive display of wildflowers and pollinators.
One or more bears had preceded me on the trail this morning, leaving scat all the way up. The first stretch is a steady four-mile ramble at a shallow grade, under red cliffs and spires, through mostly deciduous riparian forest featuring sycamore, cypress, ponderosa pine, maple, walnut, and oak. The creek was running intermittently, but often choked with algae. I saw no human tracks anywhere – presumably the heat’s been keeping hikers away.
There’s supposed to be an apple tree on the trail about three miles in, but I hadn’t found it before and didn’t find it this time either. The heat combined with humidity were really exhausting and discouraging.
Climbing less than a thousand feet in four miles, I reached the junction where the big side canyon comes in from the west. I usually see that canyon from above, where it seems vast, but the junction here is inconspicuous. Beyond here, the trail becomes very rocky and very steep, climbing continuously at an average grade of 21% for the next three miles. But it also leaves the lower, primarily deciduous forest and enters dense mixed-conifer forest that provides more shade. Scattered clouds were forming so I was hopeful for cooling temps.
But it was so muggy, even occasional shade failed to provide relief. To compensate, I had the beautiful forest, the rock formations, the flowers and the pollinators.
Finally, after a mile and a half, I reached the end of the forest and the edge of the burn scar. The steep grade and rocky trail had taken much longer than expected, and I hated to think I might fail to reach the crest.
I had to at least confirm that the upper trail was accessible. On my previous attempt, I’d gotten lost in a deeply eroded ravine choked with deadfall and regrowth. The ravine remained a nasty place, but big cairns on each side showed where to cross, and clear tread continued on the opposite side.
This restored trail had already been colonized by annuals, responding to moisture that remained in the soil from last winter. But I quickly learned to just ignore the annuals, striding through them as if they didn’t exist. I could see the narrow drainage above this burn scar, where a band of forest had escaped the fire. That was my next destination – I’d failed to bring a map, but assumed it led straight to the crest.
Cloud cover was now almost complete, and the air temperature was dropping, but I kept sweating just as hard. I was relieved to reach the intact forest, only to discover it led to upper slopes whose forest had been completely stripped by fire. The ground here was white gravel, and as far as the eye can see, it was blanketed with ferns and thorny locust, in some places shoulder-high. The trail showed as only a vague disturbance in the dense, virulent-green vegetation.
In this treeless landscape, that 21% grade felt Sisyphean. From my perspective, I couldn’t tell how near I was to the end – I assumed much of what I was looking at above were false peaks. I was pushing my way through waist-high annuals, climbing a seemingly endless series of long switchbacks toward the ever-darkening sky, stopping often to catch my breath.
But here in this alpine burn scar where you could almost touch the clouds, wildflowers were lush and pollinators were working as hard as ever – I even saw hummingbirds.
Finally I was high enough for a view east, but wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Then I reached a switchback that appeared to be approaching a saddle. My clothes were drenched with sweat and my whole body ached, but I’d reached the crest!
It had taken me 5-1/2 hours to go seven miles, climbing almost 4,000 feet, in tropical humidity. I’d felt a few sprinkles on the last switchback, but that would be it for the day. I was rewarded with a view into a new watershed, but this barren saddle wasn’t a place to linger. And I had to make much better time on the way back, to reach the cafe, burrito and beer before 6 pm closing.
A huge amount of work had gone into clearing and restoring the upper part of this trail through the burn scar, but as far as I could tell, no hiker had taken advantage of it in four months. Yes, we’d been in a heat wave – presumably people would start showing up in the fall. These trails to the crest form a network for backpackers, so hikers can now use this as the beginning or end of a multi-day trek along the crest. But considering the amount of regrowth already obscuring the route in a drought, a wet summer would quickly undo a lot of that trail work.
I expected to be cooler on the descent, but just the effort of moving downhill kept me damp. I’d allocated nine hours for the entire hike, and I thought that would leave me plenty of time, so I made plenty of stops, especially enjoying the sight of a couple of beautiful Englemann spruce trees, isolated here in one of their southernmost habitats.
I’d been drinking plenty of water and adding electrolyte supplement, but in the next two miles the leg cramps hit, eventually paralyzing me. I rested, I stretched, I pushed through them, but they took a half hour to subside. And air temperature was rising as I descended.
Suddenly I noticed three apples on the ground beside the trail. Then I looked up – the famous apple tree was right next to me! I never would’ve noticed it if I hadn’t seen the apples on the ground first.
Finally, within the last two miles, I took off my shirt and rinsed both it and my hat in the stream. It didn’t stop me from sweating but it felt better having a shirt soaked with creek water instead of sweat! And I drank the last of my four liters of water with only a mile to go – no need to guess where all that water had gone. I arrived at the vehicle with just enough time to change clothes and drive to the cafe right before closing.
