Bear
Sunday, November 8th, 2020: Bear, Hikes, Nature, Pinalenos, Plants, Rocks, Southeast Arizona.
The days were getting cooler. About time – it was the second week of November! Last night we had a high wind advisory, so before leaving for my Sunday hike, I drove into town to check my burned house for fallen limbs. Sure enough, the small elm that leaned over the burned back corner had dropped a limb on my patio.
It had rained a little last night, but the sky had mostly cleared as I drove west. I’d decided to try a new trail, over across the state line, that I’d avoided in the past. I wasn’t sure why. The range was supposed to have the densest black bear population in the country, and this trail went up Bear Canyon. But black bears are shy – I was actually hoping to see one.
It’s hunting season and that area, although far from any town, is popular, so I was also expecting to run into hunters.
The two hour drive passes through some of the loneliest country in the West.
The approach is up a beautiful valley strewn with boulders, between two mountain ranges – the tall one I was hoping to climb, and a lower, drier range that reminds me of my favorite mountains in the Mojave. Golden granite boulders, cliffs, and pinnacles. Balancing rocks. Lots of them.
I wasn’t sure about finding the trailhead, but finding the turnoff was easy. And sure enough, the road to the trailhead was almost completely blocked by a group of hunters with several big trucks and a tent already set up. I waved and carefully passed them onto a badly eroded 4wd track that I pursued for another hundred yards before pulling off and parking.
It took me a while to find the trail – there was no marker, but after one false start, I backtracked and discovered a crude cairn. The trail turned out to be used and maintained primarily by cattle, until it started climbing out of the canyon onto the ridge, where it became a narrow footpath, sometimes hard to follow. I was the first person to use it in a long while.
Aside from the granite, I like the trails on this side of the mountain because they take you from high-desert Sonoran habitat up into mixed conifer forest – and the two ecosystems intermingle in a broad elevational band, in a really interesting way. This side of the mountains shows no evidence of having burned, but the habitat is really complex. I wonder if this is the way all our Southwestern mountains were before wildfire suppression?
It was a big climb – over 4,000′ in 6 miles – and it exposed me to a cold west wind most of the way. Once I reached the crest it was freezing cold, but still mostly sunny. I took a side trip up the little peak which is known for ladybugs in warmer weather, but today was far too cold for them.
The trail continues past the ladybug peak to connect with the scary road that climbs these mountains from the north side. On the way, I got a view north – to Safford, the “city of the plain” – and west, to the highest peaks of the range.
On the way down, I lost my footing in soft dirt trying to bypass a fallen log, and had a bad fall. The wind was brutal and I was starting to get a chill, so I put on all my warm clothing. Then I passed a young guy who was wearing shorts – but unlike me, he was still climbing and generating body heat.
I’d been impressed by the trail going up, but coming back down it seemed a lot rockier and more difficult. Once again, I was fooled by the time change. The sun was setting earlier than I expected.
Near the bottom, I heard footsteps behind me. It was the young guy from the crest. I asked him about his hike, and where he was from – he was from Indiana, like me! He said he’d gone stir crazy, trapped in Indianapolis by COVID, and had decided to take a solo three-week road trip around the west. He was working remotely and hiking as much as possible. He said he just can’t get enough of the West. I sensed that his days in the flatlands of Indiana are numbered. I don’t know how people can stand living in a place with no mountains…
Monday, December 28th, 2020: Bear, Hikes, Pinalenos, Southeast Arizona.
One of those days when I wasn’t motivated. It was freezing outside, I had trouble deciding where to go, and the hike I finally chose was a long drive away. Fortunately, preparing for an all-day hike in the mountains is a complicated routine, so I just submitted to it, and the routine eventually got me out the door on time.
Funny, the sky was’t particularly interesting during the drive across the big empty basins of the Southwest. But once I arrived and started walking, something drew my eyes upwards, and the spectacle began.
No wind at ground level, but the clouds were churning constantly, all day long. Still, I had to keep my eyes on the ground while walking, and I was surprised to find a crowd of footprints – big, medium, and small, both coming and going – lining the trail from the beginning. I hadn’t thought this was such a popular trail.
However, the human prints disappeared after the first mile or so in the foothills. As usual, they were only up for a short stroll and had turned back. From there on, I had virgin trail – looked like no one else but animals had set foot on it since my last visit, seven weeks ago.
This is probably the most consistently steep hike I do. I’d forgotten how relentless it is. Southern exposure most of the way up, sweating. Then at the top, a knife edge ridge scoured by icy wind, legs aching, trudging in the chill shadow of towering firs up ground altering between crusty patches of snow and a pillowy sea of oak leaves.
Taking it easier on the way down. Love this Sky Island habitat – much more interesting than what we have back home. Especially in this canyon, where a maze of rock outcrops and cliffs forces vegetation into patches, alternating between dense chaparral and mixed-conifer forest, often interpenetrating. So much diversity! I kept exlaiming out loud, “What a great trail!”
Sunday, February 14th, 2021: Bear, Hikes, Pinalenos, Southeast Arizona.
The forecast called for up to 4 inches of snow, beginning in early morning, so I was looking forward to today’s hike. But 4 inches in town, at 6,000′, could translate to a foot in the mountains. So I’d decided to try one of my favorite hikes, over in Arizona, which starts over a thousand feet lower and climbs to a little below 9,000′. I didn’t know if I’d make it to the top, but I’d try.
However, I wasn’t thinking about the long drive over there. When I got up in the morning there was an inch of snow in town. By the time I was ready to go, it was snowing again. The Sidekick has the best all-terrain tires you can get, and I shifted it into 4 wheel drive. As I drove south out of town, rising toward the Continental Divide, more and more snow was coating the highway.
I’d never tried the Sidekick on a snowy road before. My 2wd truck would’ve just slid off into a ditch immediately, so I was quite apprehensive. There was nobody else on the road.
The Sidekick did fine, and I figured the snow would end where the highway drops out of the mountains into the basin, below 5,500′. But it didn’t – it turned into a blizzard there. Snow was piling up in Lordsburg, below 4,500′. Crazy!
If Lordsburg had inches of snow, I wasn’t even sure I could get to the trailhead over in the Pinalenos. Maybe I should skip that climb, head south to the Chiricahuas instead, and do a low-elevation loop. I wouldn’t get much of a workout, but it’d be better than nothing.
But I finally emerged from the snow, crossing the playa on I-10, and saw blue sky ahead. I decided to keep going. And it turned out that the storm hadn’t dumped as much in Arizona as it was dumping in New Mexico.
The forecast had called for more snow throughout the day, so I dressed warm before heading up the trail. It’s really hard to change socks or pull on long johns when you’re already standing in snow.
It was windy, and clouds kept breaking up the sunlight, so I kept going from warm to cold while climbing. I couldn’t see much snow on the slope ahead, but I could see frost on the pines and firs up on the ridge. It can get really cold up there.
I hit snow on the trail at about the halfway point.
Fortunately the morning wind didn’t follow me onto the ridge top. The snow depth varied from 3 inches to a foot in steep, shady spots. It was beautiful fresh powder, and there was a little more coming down, despite the blue skies overhead. I was moving pretty well, but I didn’t have much time left by the time I got up there. I had to stop and turn back a half mile from the end, in order to get home at a reasonable hour. I was okay with that because the snow was getting deeper!
Snow on the upper trail made the descent much easier – I just sort of skipped down until I ran out of snow.
I really had to fight a crosswind to stay on the Interstate. It was dark by the time I reached Lordsburg. All the snow had melted, but there was a gale-force wind with brutal wind chill when I got out to pump gas.
The highway home was also snow-free until it rose into the low Burro mountains. There, I immediately hit ice and the vehicle started to fishtail. I was able to pull over and switch into 4wd, but still had only marginal grip. I switched on the emergency flasher and proceeded at about 35 mph. Within a few minutes a car came up behind me and tailgated me dangerously close for another 5 minutes until finally passing. It was a cheap little Japanese car, and it immediately speeded out of sight in the icy snow.
I expected to find it in a ditch ahead, but somehow the driver made it. And I found that I could actually drive faster now I was in 4wd. Still, it took me about twice as long as usual to get through the mountains. A long, exciting day!
Bushwhacking Another Abandoned Trail
Monday, May 17th, 2021: Bear, Hikes, Pinalenos, Southeast Arizona.
I’d taken the previous Sunday off after an injury and minor surgery, so today I wanted a long hike with a lot of elevation to make up. I decided to drive over to Arizona to hit one of my favorite trails in a range with a lot of exposed rock, but this time, instead of taking it to the peak, I wanted to explore an apparently abandoned trail that branched off from the crest and dropped along an outlying ridge into a distant canyon.
Air over the Southwest was very hazy today, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and I expected temperatures at the trailhead, below 5,000′, to approach 90 at midday. But it would be cooler as I started out this morning, and hopefully I’d get breezes as I climbed higher.
I love this trail because of the golden granite boulders in the foothills and the white cliffs and pinnacles along the crest, but I always forget how steep it is. It climbs 3,400′ to a saddle on the ridge top in less than 5 miles – significantly steeper than the steepest trail near home. As a result, I’d never seen much sign of traffic – usually hikers went a mile or two at most before turning back. It’s a south-facing slope and most of the climb is fully exposed, so it felt much hotter than it was. I’d been missing sleep for several nights in a row so my energy was low, and unusually for me, I had to stop many times to catch my breath after the first three miles or so.
Near the top, you enter mixed-conifer forest, and the abandoned trail starts at the high saddle, in a small clearing. The only online trip report I could find from the last 10 years started at the other end, more than 6 miles away and 4,000′ lower. As I recalled, they’d given up about 3/4 of the way. But I’d be starting from the top, and on previous visits I’d glimpsed invitingly clear tread at the junction.
I hadn’t brought a map, but in my memory from the day before, the trail headed down a shallow ridgetop for a couple of miles before switchbacking down into the canyon. Setting off, I soon encountered some deadfall, but it wasn’t bad, and the good tread continued for a few hundred yards.
I was on a north slope well outside the burn areas farther west, and this forest of tall firs and Gambel oak was dense and lush with undergrowth. Instead of following a gentle ridgetop, the trail plunged down a very steep slope that was heavily eroded due to a lot of deadfall and rockfall. The good tread ended and I had to sort out a route through heavily disturbed ground showing only game tracks. But after finding a way through these stretches, I kept rejoining short sections of old trail that had built-up rock berms to protect them on the steep slope.
Eventually my route dropped into a deep side canyon with huge boulders and old-growth firs, where the trail was blocked by massive deadfall I had to climb through. In the middle of the drainage I found an old cairn, so I just kept going.
From here the trail climbed steeply. I saw dramatic rock outcrops far above and knew I’d misread the map the day before. This was nothing like what I’d expected. I almost thought I might be on the wrong trail, but I knew there were no other historical trails in this area, and I kept finding cairns, and even occasionally an old bleached ribbon on a branch. But definitely no human footprints, and no sign anyone had come this way in at least a decade.
This trail wound its way over and under rock formations that formed impassable cliffs, through what was basically a jungle of Gambel oak and thorny locust. It was all very impressive but not much fun, and there wasn’t enough wind to keep me from overheating and depleting my drinking water.
Checking my watch as I approached the bottom of yet another side drainage, I realized I’d more than used up my available time and would have to turn back.
It’s impossible to determine distances on a trail like this. It’s shown on the GPS-based, crowdsourced sites as about 6 miles end to end, but the routes plotted on those sites omit the dozens of meanders and switchbacks I encountered in my short exploration, not to mention whatever might lie beyond that. The direct distance from the junction to my turning point was about 1/2 mile, so I’m guessing I explored 3/4 mile one-way, which took me an hour in the slow conditions. Including the climb to the saddle, I achieved close to 4,000′ of accumulated elevation gain.
Now that I knew the route, the fight back to the trail junction at the saddle wasn’t too bad. And a breeze was picking up, so even though the air temperature was much higher than in the morning, it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. Exposed on the crest in still air, it felt like 90, but in the shade of the forest it was clearly still in the 60s.
Unfortunately, on the way down I began to notice the trash. First, one of those giant plastic “big gulp” tumblers you get soft drinks in at fast food joints. I tried to reach it but it was embedded in dense brush down a steep slope of loose gravel.
About halfway down I found a spot where hikers had recently sat above the trail for a snack. They’d left orange peels and two plastic water bottles. About a mile beyond that I found another, older water bottle.
In the past I’ve very seldom had to pack out trash from other hikers – this was the most I’d ever seen, on a single remote, difficult trail that gets little use. I attribute it to Arizona – Arizonans are in general just more irresponsible than New Mexicans – and the fact that most hikers here come from Phoenix, which has a culture of irresponsibility.
I was really looking forward to the extra bottle of drinking water in my vehicle, until I found that it’d been heated to about 100 degrees. Guess I need to start bringing a cooler full of ice on these all-day hikes.
And on the interstate, I ran over a big snake that raced in front of me before I could react. That bummed me out almost all the way home.
Monday, April 4th, 2022: Bear, Hikes, Pinalenos, Southeast Arizona.
Trying to maximize the time available for my Sunday hikes without rushing and stressing out, my weekend schedule is tight, and I’m still having trouble adjusting to daylight savings time. This weekend I set my alarm to go off early, but still ended up getting a late start, because I couldn’t decide where to go. I really wanted to return to the range in Arizona with a trail that climbs through granite boulders – it’d been almost a year since I’d been over there – but it comes at a high cost.
I burn a prodigious amount of energy on these hikes, and end up starving afterward. But it’s a two hour drive, and there are no restaurants along the way, so I need to end the hike in time to get back home at a reasonable hour. I never like to drive home in the dark anyway, because of the chance of deer on the road. Those time constraints generally result in shorter hikes than I can do closer to home. But for other reasons, the cost of today’s hike was much higher than usual.
The day was forecast to be partly cloudy with a high of 70 at home. Perfect hiking weather. But I wasn’t thinking about elevation and aspect – the trail starts 1,000′ lower than home and is fully exposed on a south-facing slope for most of the way.
One reason I like this trail is that it’s a steady 4,000′ climb to the crest. But since most people prefer an easy hike, trails in this range are intended to start at the paved road on top and end at the bottom, where there is no marked trailhead. You have to know the turnoff onto a high-clearance 4wd track that meanders a few hundred yards into the foothill scrub, and then you have to know where to start the trail, a few hundred yards beyond the end of the track. I figured all that out on my first visit.
Nobody had driven that 4wd track recently, but it’d been fully trampled by cattle. The boulder-strewn base of the mountains alternates between meadows, dense scrub, and giant old Emory oaks, and the trail meanders between them while climbing gradually into the complex topography of the foothills. I could hear the cattle before I saw them – they were grazing a grassy basin to my left – then while stopping to stretch I was surprised by a cow and her calf emerging from the oak scrub a few yards away.
This is generally a good trail, and a very beautiful one, but it’s seldom used. One large man had walked the first mile or so recently, but his footprints ended soon. Even the cattle seem to stick to the foothills and never venture higher.
Flies were bad and I had to pull on my head net shortly after starting. Small flowers brightened the trail, and the Emory oak leaves were turning. We think of deciduous trees as changing color and losing their leaves in fall, but the Emory oak does this in our windy season of March and April.
The day felt hot from the beginning. My memory of this place was rusty, and things had changed in the eleven months since my last visit. The steady climb that yields spectacular views is exhausting, and last summer’s wet monsoon had resulted in overgrowth of the trail by grasses and shrubs. Near the bottom it was thorny mesquite that scratched my hands and made me especially grateful for thorn-proof pants. Since virtually no one besides me hikes the full trail, grasses had obliterated much of the tread and hid rocks that kept throwing me off balance. Game trails often had more tread than the hiking trail, so I really had to rely on memory and cairns, which were themselves sometimes buried in overgrowth.
Fortunately the flies disappeared beyond the foothills – hopefully they were localized around the cattle. But it seemed to take much longer and require much more effort than expected to reach the midway point, a saddle in the ridge that stays to your right during the climb. Since the entire trail, ending at the crest highway, is only a little over 6 miles – shorter than my usual Sunday hikes – my plan had been to add a mile or two on a side trail. But I was so fatigued by the halfway climb I wondered if I’d even be able to finish this trail.
The second segment of the climb to the crest runs through completely different habitat: a unique mixture of scrub oak and fir forest between outcrops of white rock. The vegetation is so dense you know it’s the product of wildfire and is now overdue for another burn, but in the meantime it’s a great place to visit. But in dense vegetation, protected from wind, it felt like it was 80 degrees, and my head net went back on because the flies in that area were terrible.
Entering the shadowy old-growth fir forest near the crest I got a second wind. The second milestone on this trail is a tiny saddle where it crosses to the north side of the crest and enters dense, cool fir forest – the third completely different habitat adding to the appeal. It’s a 3,200′ climb to that saddle, and while traversing upward on that north slope you occasionally get glimpses through the firs of the vast Gila River Valley 5,000′ below to the north.
Shortly after starting that traverse I heard the voices of a young couple hidden in the trees above the trail. Like most people, they’d walked down from the crest highway and were just hanging out. Three quarters of a mile farther, near the 8,700′ high point of the trail, I heard kids yelling and screaming on the little peak above – more people who’d simply walked over from the crest highway – and that made up my mind about what to do next.
Just below the peak there’s a signed junction – a trail that’s sort of the mirror image of mine, climbing from the northern foothills. I couldn’t remember anything about this trail, but I figured I’d explore and use it to add mileage and elevation for the day.
It surprised me by dropping very steeply through more dense fir forest, in a seemingly endless series of switchbacks, the most I could ever remember, some of them only two or three dozen feet long. Due north of me I could see a white rock spire and knew there had to be a saddle between me and it. I figured that would be my turnaround point, but it seemed to take forever to get there, in 600′ of descent that I would then have to climb out of.
When I finally reached that saddle in a small sunny clearing, it was hard to leave it. But my hip was hurting and I couldn’t afford to delay.
I counted the switchbacks on the way up – 32! But they actually made the steep climb tolerable. It was late enough now that everyone else had left and the only sounds were from wind and birds.
Heading down the south slope from the junction saddle, my hip was so sore I took a pain pill and began favoring that leg. Precarious footing on loose rocks, swarms of flies – but in partial compensation, those endless views!
As expected, I made much better time going downhill, but in the foothills, where tread was often buried under grasses, I first got confused, and then got completely lost.
In a level patch where grassy slopes declined on three sides, there was a nice big cairn, but nothing more that looked like a trail. Why hadn’t I noticed and marked this spot on the way up, like I usually do if the way seems confusing?
I spent 20 minutes scouting far and wide for trail in all directions beyond the cairn, but could find no sign of trail. I was now running late, so I said “Screw this, I’ll just bushwhack.” Far below I could see a little rocky peak. I knew the trail crossed a grassy saddle just before it, then traversed the left side. If I just headed straight down I should intersect the trail somewhere.
With the deep grass hiding sharp rocks and drop-offs, it was slow and hard going. After another 20 minutes, I came upon another cairn and the continuation of the trail. I figured I was now a half hour late.
I was in one of the prettiest parts of the trail when a golden eagle flew over, hazed by a small, screeching hawk. I couldn’t get a picture because they were directly in front of the setting sun.
Further down, I found the cattle in exactly the same place as 8 hours ago.
The drive home was uneventful until dusk, when the highway home climbs through the foothills of the low mountains south of town. I’ve occasionally found deer standing in the road there and am always paranoid. I did pass a small group standing off in the grass on the right, but they didn’t even raise their heads as I drove past.
Then, about 10 miles outside of town, when visibility was getting poor, I suddenly noticed another small group standing off in the brush to my right, grazing peacefully. I was driving the speed limit, 65, but since they weren’t on the move I figured I’d make it.
But just at that moment, one doe darted directly in front of me, the length of her body slamming against the full width of my car’s grille, and her sideways momentum combined with the forward momentum of my car threw her limply all the way across the highway to my left.
She was killed instantly, and parts started flying off the front of my car. In shock, I slowed and pulled over and got out to check the damage. The car seemed to be running fine, but the grille was gone, the front frame and hood were slightly buckled, the radiator fan was just hanging loose behind the bumper, and the headlights, glass completely gone, were barely hanging on by their wires.
It was getting dark fast, and I focused on just getting home, especially since my headlights were useless. Approaching town I started to smell anti-freeze and knew I was on borrowed time. I took a detour on back streets to avoid cops. The temperature gage still looked normal. But a block from home, the engine emergency light came on and I noticed the temperature gage was pinned in the red. I managed to roll up to the curb in front of my house just as smoke started pouring out from under my buckled hood and I turned off the ignition.
I was still in shock, but I knew this was an overdue initiation to rural driving, and I was very lucky. A guy in his 20s had recently died just outside of town after swerving to miss a deer, and one night in the Sierra Nevada of California, my dad rolled his car, was thrown out into a field, and broke his collarbone after swerving to miss a deer. More recently, one of my oldest friends hit a buck while driving home late and, like me, barely made it home with his crippled car.
