Hikes
Thursday, July 18th, 2024: Chiricahuas, Hikes, Rustler, Southeast Arizona.
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but they often suck at expressing the feelings inspired in nature. My current series of Dispatches reports on hikes or drives to the 9,000 foot crest of various Southwestern mountain ranges, but I’ve gradually realized that neither the pictures nor my reports have conveyed the feelings these places inspire.
I literally become ecstatic when I reach the crest of a mountain range, especially if it includes an unobstructed view to one or both sides, across the landscape thousands of feet below. That experience is the goal of my favorite hikes. In the major ranges of the Southwest, the crest averages 9,000 feet in elevation, 4,000 feet above the alluvial fans at their feet. In the Mojave Desert, the crests are much lower, as are the surrounding basins – the ridgelines of my favorite desert range seldom reach 5,000 feet, whereas the alluvial fans lie 1,000 to 2,000 feet below. But the feeling I get is the same regardless of the numbers.
Why? What is a crest, and why is it special?
Of course there’s the view – climbing from one side, when you reach the crest, you discover a whole new world, as far as the eye can see. The crest is where the weather happens – air is squeezed, wind funnels across, clouds form, rain or snow falls. A crest defines watersheds – the high line that diverts creeks to one side or the other. Reaching the crest fills my heart to bursting.
On the way to a doctor’s appointment in Tucson, I noticed the eastbound lanes of the interstate were under construction. With all that driving, I wondered if there was a chance of getting a short hike in. So on my return, I took a detour off the backed-up interstate. I knew there was a forest road that crossed the crest of one of my favorite ranges, and I’d seen it from far away, snaking up the mountain, but I’d never driven it. If I could drive up there, I might be able to hike the crest trail for a mile or two without taxing my knee.
It was a beautiful drive on a spine-hammering road starting out as deeply washboarded gravel, rising in single-lane hairpin turns on hard-packed dirt, rocks up to two feet in diameter embedded in hard-packed dirt, and ledges of solid bedrock. It took forty-five minutes to drive the ten miles to the crest. I passed several deer, and in a shady grove in the foothillls, a group of kids on an outing supervised by two women. But I didn’t pass another vehicle all morning on that narrow, twisting road.
I was thrilled to reach the crest, to cross the watershed and glimpse the eastern landscape, the mountains I was familiar with from many previous trips. Here a side road continues a thousand feet higher to a campground in the sky. I drove below tall firs that emphasized the altitude – everywhere there was a feeling of being on top of the world. I passed some kind of official crew camping at a dispersed site in a grove of giants below the road – they were gone when I returned in the afternoon. At the 8,400-foot campground I saw one RV, but apart from me and these there wasn’t another vehicle on the mountain. I parked, breathed the clean high-elevation air, and ate the tacos I’d picked up on the way.
The crest trail starts at the parking area outside the campground, and climbs through a fern-covered burn scar. It was hot out in the open – probably in the mid-80s. The trail traversed above and around the campground, and nearing the actual crest I came to a side trail, and followed it to a small saddle where I got my first view west. Clouds were building over the mountains south of me, and the west looked stormy.
I rejoined the main trail, which continues traversing across the east side of the crest, through patches of shade and thickets of thorny locust, and onto a narrow ledge below a sheer cliff. Past the cliff, the trail curves back into a hollow where I came upon an older couple struggling to control two big dogs – the people from the RV. Patches of forest and burn scar alternated across the slopes, jays and woodpeckers flitted through the trees and snags above me. Eventually the trail reached a saddle on the crest. I’d intended to turn back here, but there wasn’t much of a view, so I kept climbing.
Past the saddle, the trial climbs steeply through more burn scar, to a sort of barren hump with an expansive view west. I made my way to a rock outcrop, from which I could see rain falling out in the plain. But an outlying ridge blocked my view south, so I decided to climb even higher.
I reached a small hollow that was choked with ferns, charred logs, and thickets of locust. I tried going off-trail, hoping to get a view, but found myself blocked by forest. So I returned to the trail and continued still higher, out of the jungle and around the shoulder of the outlying ridge, and here I found my view to the south, at an elevation of 9,100 feet.
I was just shedding my pack and digging for my water bottle when I heard the sound of jets. It was two A-10 Warthogs, a fearsome machine designed to fly low and obliterate people and vehicles on the ground. They were flying up the canyon below me, just above the trees, and I watched them cross the crest in front of me.
On the way back, I detoured off the crest trail and down onto a very primitive forest road, hoping it would be easier on my knee and give me better views to the east. But it was so rocky I had to walk very slow – tottering between a problem foot on one side and a problem knee on the other.
At one point I heard screeching high above, and turned to see two golden eagles circling each other. Later, in a shady grove of tall firs, I came upon an empty Forest Service “Guard Station” – rustic cabins used periodically by work crews. Everything here felt high, remote, and lonely. Far from the world of screens, cities, celebrities, the rich and powerful and their advanced technologies – except that killer jets could thunder past at any moment.
Driving back down the crest road I passed a side road to another “park” – rural vernacular for a level place on top of a mountain. As I was checking my map, an old guy on a motorcycle approached and passed me.
I got turned around and climbed the side road, over a ridge and down into a densely forested basin, where I noticed the motorcyclist on the road below me. I finally emerged in the “park” – a grassy meadow surrounded by fir forest, with informal dispersed campsites, all empty. The motorcyclist passed me again and returned up the road without stopping – apparently just out for a ride in the sky, no need to get off the bike.
Shortly after I started back up the road, I encountered a big pickup pulling a loaded horse trailer down that steep, rocky trail. There was barely enough room for me to pull over, and the driver was staring straight ahead with his jaw clenched.
I began thinking about the RV at the campground. Most of these roads are single-width, and trees often fall across them. Rigs like that sure couldn’t back up in an emergency, and there’s absolutely no space for them to turn around. I guess they just count on other people to come by and save them if anything goes wrong.
Now I would continue down the main road off the crest to the east, and I immediately found that it’s just as bad as its western counterpart, and I could go no faster. But now it was like rush hour, one vehicle after the other passing me on their way up the hairpin turns. I had to pull over and stop to let the motorcycle guy past for the third time – he was going twice as fast as me, bouncing over all those rocks.
Halfway down I was approaching another blind turn when out shot a late-model minivan. The driver saw me and slammed on the brakes, going into a slide toward the sheer drop-off, his tires catching at the last minute. I pulled over, stopped, and rolled down my window, shouting “Slow down!” as he pulled alongside. It was a vanload of students on a field trip with their bearded, conservatively-dressed professor driving. He responded with a big smile, saying “How ya doin?”
I understood the rancher types with their pickups and trailers – they’ll drive anywhere. But I couldn’t fathom people who would drive minivans – let alone big RVs – up a rocky, narrow, seemingly high-clearance road like this.
Again, I passed lots of deer – mule deer, all very small. When I finally reached the oak-studded foothills, I came upon another big truck towing an even bigger horse trailer, the animals all sticking their heads out the side to watch me pass. This truck had broken down on the road, and its young cowboy driver was sitting in a folding chair behind the trailer. He said a hose had burst and his wife was on her way to get a replacement. Down here it was in the mid-90s.
After bouncing over rocks for hours, never knowing who was going to show up around those hairpin curves, my nerves were completely shot by the time I reached the paved road in the canyon. I got dinner and beer at the cafe, and decided to grab a room for the night – the only other option was driving home in the dark. But my troubles didn’t end there – it was over 90 degrees in the room and took three hours for the window air conditioner to cool it down. Makes a better story that way, right?
Sunday, July 21st, 2024: Hikes, Nature, Plants, Southwest New Mexico.
I went for a short hike near town – the start of a longer hike I do regularly when I don’t have a hurt knee. This first stretch gently ascends a canyon bottom on a primitive road, finally becoming a foot trail nearly two miles up the canyon.
Returning down the road I encountered an older couple. The man looked like a 19th-century outlaw, with bright eyes, an impressive mustache, and a hat I envied. We agreed that the canyon was surprisingly dry considering the rain we’d had in the past week. That led to talk of climate change, and a world that’s going to hell in a handbasket. As locals, we agreed that we’re probably living in the best possible place – high in the mountains and far from the crowds. The man said “I’m just glad this is all happening at the end of my life – kids today are facing a bleak future.”
Not wanting to end on such a sour note, I replied “Well, the canyon’s full of beautiful flowers and butterflies today.”
The man smiled. “A friend told me he goes to the forest to lose his mind and find his soul.”
Enjoy the flowers and butterflies!
Monday, August 19th, 2024: 2024 Trips, Hikes, Mogollon Rim, P Bar, Regions, Road Trips, Southeast Arizona, Whites.
Now that I’ve embarked on a new, hopefully temporary Sunday routine of one-day road trips, I’m starting to get more analytical and organized – another aspect of my lifelong struggle between left and right brains. But the problem with remote destinations in this remote region – even after decades of internet, web, GPS, smart phones, apps, and social media – is that reliable information is often lacking. And when no one answers the phone or nothing shows up on Google Maps, you have to actually drive a couple of hours to find out if something exists or is open. I find that refreshing and hope it’s never completely “fixed” by the techno-utopians.
I’d been suffering through so much heat at home that I wanted to escape to the Arizona alpine plateau, which would be 15 degrees cooler – in the 70s. Driving north past the big ranches west of town, I approached a pair of bikers weaving constantly back and forth in opposition to each other. They pulled over and stopped as I got close. Their bikes were new and futuristic, stark black and white, as were their outfits – they reminded me of the Apple or Elon Musk aesthetic. But a little farther up the road I saw them in my rearview and they passed me, and began weaving their bikes theatrically back and forth in opposition again. And then, a few miles farther, I passed them again, stopped on the shoulder, gesticulating at each other. More weird city people invading our rural refuge.
The route crosses a series of intermediate passes, and approaching the highest, at 8,000 feet, I remembered there was a forest road heading north along a long ridge that overlooked the canyons and basin to the east. For once, I wasn’t on a schedule and decided to check it out.
It was pretty well graded and led through mature ponderosa pine forest dappled with sunlight and shade. I wasn’t planning to go very far, and I hadn’t seen anything interesting yet, when after a little more than a mile I saw sky through the trees to my right, and wondered if that was the rim of the ridge. Shortly after that I came to a dirt track leading off in that direction.
Winding beneath the big trees, it took me to a campsite on the edge of a rock cliff overlooking a broad thousand-foot-deep canyon toward the distant skyline of our 11,000 foot mountains thirty miles away. It was the most spectacular campsite/picnic spot I’d ever found in my home region. It was litter-free and someone had left a little stack of firewood. I even found a young Arizona cypress growing on the rim, a tree I’d never seen in this area.
From there I drove to the Arizona hamlet at 8,000 feet, a two-hour drive from home, where I was hoping to get lunch. But the grill was closed – once again, no definitive info online – so I decided to drive higher onto the volcanic plateau, another half hour of driving across one of my favorite wild, uninhabited landscapes, to an isolated lodge that I knew was open daily.
The drive winds through burn scars and intact spruce-fir forest, climbing over ridges and into and out of side canyons, passing the broad grassy meadows that line much of this plateau. At an elevation of over 9,000 feet, I came upon the lodge suddenly and pulled off. There were two motorcycles parked in front.
I found the restaurant door unlocked and went in. Two retired-looking biker couples stood examining a map on my left, and a sign said to seat yourself, so I took a seat at the counter until one of the men came over and told me the restaurant didn’t open until noon. I went outside to wait at a table, and the bikers rode off.
I needed to pee, and hadn’t seen restrooms in the restaurant, so I entered the main door of the lodge. The reception counter was unoccupied, but a very old man slumped on a sofa opposite, staring at something in his lap – probably a phone. I peered into the office and up the stairs, then turned and asked the man if there was anyone working today. I was standing less than six feet away, but he ignored me.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said. Then he slowly looked up with an angry glare. Even more slowly, he took a tiny device out of his ear and shook his head in apparent disgust.
“Did you say something?” he snapped.
“Sorry to bother you,” I replied. “It’s nothing.” He put the device back in and looked back down without another word.
I went back outside and tried the restaurant door. It had been locked.
At my table on the front deck, a constant swarm of hummingbirds surrounded a feeder behind my left shoulder. It’s an incredibly beautiful spot, and the weather was perfect. I watched a thunderhead develop across the highway, behind the spruce forest, far to the east. A four-door Jeep arrived with two more retired couples. After I told them about opening time, they wandered off to examine the property. A half hour later an older couple arrived, and likewise wandered off.
This place is known in both the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas. It’s a long, arduous drive, but that’s what bikers seem to crave, and summer in those urban hellholes makes people desperate for relief. And this is paradise compared to the crowds and traffic of closer getaways like Sedona and Flagstaff.
Nearing noon the two couples returned and asked me what I knew about this place – I’d spent the night here once and had dinner. Then the restaurant door was unlocked and our small group filed in.
I had a burger that appeared to be nothing special but tasted unusually good. I overheard the couples telling the waiter they were from Yuma but were spending the summer in Show Low – an interesting life plan. I wondered if they were staying in personal RVs or vacation homes. Yuma houses a legendary prison and is notorious for being the hottest town in the U.S., with an average summer high of 115. I’ve heard it called the armpit of the Southwest. I wondered how anyone would choose Yuma as a retirement destination. But if they did, why would they need to choose a summer home in the same state? Tax reasons?
And then consider the options – towns that would offer a summer refuge. My first choice would be the casual resort village across the plateau at 8,400 feet, but it’s very expensive. Show Low is basically a bustling redneck town, only slightly higher in elevation than my hometown, center of a big ranching district – no way would I consider it a pleasant summer retreat. These folks intrigued me.
We finished at roughly the same time and exchanged a few words at the door. I mentioned I’d overheard they were from Yuma, and said I knew it by reputation, having only passed through. One of the women said “We live there, we’re not from there! We’re from New York state.” Apparently I’d touched a raw nerve, and the mystery deepened.
Driving off, I made it only a few miles down the road when I approached a trailhead and decided to check it out. I’m not hiking, but I really wanted to immerse myself in this beautiful forest with its crystal-clear, high-elevation air.
Unsurprisingly, only a few yards up the trail my legs took over, and I realized my body was desperate to walk. I simply couldn’t avoid exploring farther. A storm had come over and raindrops were falling so I grabbed my shell out of the pickup.
The trail climbed steadily, 300 feet in elevation to the top of the ridge, and unfortunately this patch of forest had been touched by the massive 2011 fire – not at high intensity, but enough to thin it out, creating a maze of deadfall and near-continuous thickets of locust regrowth. One treat was the strawberries – I’d never seen so many, although they were small, and most were not ripe yet.
Light rain fell on and off. I was hoping to get across the ridge with a view into the big river valley to the east, but this turned out to be part of a broad network of ridges and canyons. After three quarters of a mile I turned back – my first, very short, hike in almost a month!
On the way back, I was reviewing my interactions with the folks at the lodge – I’d also had a brief conversation with the other couple. Apart from the occasional angry old man, most interactions with strangers in isolated, lonely places like this are much friendlier than you’d have in crowds or in town. People tend to be excited to meet strangers and discover secrets of their lives. As a result, you briefly get a more optimistic and tolerant view of humanity, which is paradoxical for someone like me who values solitude and is generally considered a cynic. But like all pleasures, it’s fleeting.
Monday, August 26th, 2024: Hikes, Mineral, Mogollon Mountains, Southwest New Mexico.
Our weather had cooled off – town was only forecast to reach 84. I still wanted to get away to someplace cooler, but now had more options nearer home than where I’d gone last Sunday. The county seat north of us was only forecast to reach 78, and there’s a fairly level hike on the way there that should be easy on my knee, and a couple of cafes for lunch afterward.
This is a canyon hike that was recommended within the first couple of months after I moved here, but for various reasons I’d never explored it. The trail begins at the end of a long gravel road with multiple creek crossings, and before I got my 4wd Sidekick, I was paranoid about my truck getting stuck. Then when I started doing long day hikes, I saw that being a canyon hike, this trail offered very little elevation gain, so it didn’t interest me.
But I’d been told the canyon was spectacular, and I’d seen photos to confirm it. So knee pain now gave me an excuse to hike it.
The trail goes up the floodplain about 300 yards before entering the narrows. First thing I saw was a big rattlesnake – almost four feet long. It just moved off the trail without rattling.
The sky was partly cloudy, with a lot of deep shadows in the narrow canyon, so I had a struggle taking photos. It was beautiful, as expected, but muggy, and more than 400 feet lower than home. I’d gotten a late start and it was hot there.
Eventually I emerged from the canopy onto a dramatic stretch of exposed bedrock. Trying to protect my knee, and worried about the cafes closing at 2pm, I stopped where the canyon widened out. It’d taken me 45 minutes, but with a lot of stops figured I’d gone less than a mile.
On the way back, I spotted a school of trout, up to a foot long, in a pool below a cascade. It’s definitely a beautiful place, and there’s supposed to be another “narrows” further up, but it’s not really a hiking trail – it’s more for people who like to walk a short distance, without much effort, and hang out enjoying scenery.
By the time I got to the town with the cafes, it was after 2, and the better one was closed. Fortunately the other, a “greasy spoon”, was open, and I got a decent burger with the worst fries I’ve ever seen. A big storm was gathering and I decided to grab provisions at the market and check into the motel.
I’d passed the modest county fairgrounds on the way in, and in the motel office saw a poster for the fair – which was ending today. This is the biggest county in the state but has a population less than 3,600, with only 289 in the town. It’s the national center of the rural pro-Trump, anti-government movement, but I’ve always found the people friendly, I’ve never felt threatened or even uncomfortable here, and the surrounding habitat is wilder and better protected than most places I know in California. There are a lot of trails nearby that intrigue me so I keep feeling drawn to this area.
After I was settled into my room, I glanced out the window and saw a teenage girl feeding her horse outside the office. This is that kind of place. An hour later it was raining. My knee was sore again and despite getting a shot week before last, I still had residual pain from my right shoulder.
Early next morning, I woke up refreshed and hit the road south. A half hour later I found myself stuck behind an interesting outfit – a tall box truck with side windows in the box, towing what appeared to be a fairly large hand-made wooden boat. I patiently waited a few miles for a long enough straight stretch to pass.
Monday, October 14th, 2024: Hikes, Middle Fork, Mogollon Mountains, Southwest New Mexico.
This marks the hopeful return of my hiking Dispatches, after a three-month hiatus due to knee pain and family troubles. In August, I got an injection for shoulder pain, and the dosage was so high it gradually wiped out pain in both shoulders and the knee, but in September and October, travel prevented me from walking or doing rehab. The long rest seems to have finally eliminated my knee pain – knock on wood! But on my first short walk around town last week, I got bad shin splints – is this old body ready to curl up and die after all?
I was really missing the high mountains, so I decided to make another long, arduous drive for a short hike. We’re having apocalyptically warm weather this fall, and the high in town was forecast in the low 80s, but that would mean 70s in the mountains – perfect.
Since my first journey to the northern edge of our wilderness, four months ago, monsoon rains had torn up the steep, winding, one-lane forest road over the 9,000-foot crest, cutting deep gullies and exposing more embedded rock. Driving it now was like driving over a debris field. As long as I wore my noise-cancelling headphones I could just bounce my little truck over the rocks, although with no weight in the bed there was a lot of wheelspin. But on the last stretch I frequently had to pull over for bigger vehicles, took off the headphones, and the rattling left me a nervous wreck by the time I descended to the open country on the east side.
I picked this remote hike because I needed to protect both the recent shin splints and the long-term knee issue, and this is one of the few pretty hikes in our area that doesn’t involve big elevation changes. I wasn’t thinking of the fall color, but that turned out to be a bonus. We’re at the tail end of a severe drought, so I was surprised to see all the creeks still running.
There are a few small ups and downs to bypass creekside bluffs, and I took short steps or sidestepped down those to protect my legs, so it was a very slow hike.
All in all, it took me almost two hours to hike less than three miles on a very easy trail – but after such a long hiatus this is how careful I need to be.
It’s amazing how noise-dependent my stress level is. The headphones made the rough drive back over the crest tolerable, despite the traffic. For almost the whole distance, I ended up stuck behind a family in a big crew-cab truck. They were sightseeing, never exceeding about 7 mph, the kids hanging out the side windows, yelling at each other and tearing branches off roadside aspens.
My next goal was the tiny restaurant in the ghost town at 6,600 feet. They’re only open on weekends, spring through fall, because the road closes in winter. Basically a burger place, they have counter service inside with tables outside beside the creek, which has been channelized for flood control. It was a perfect chance to chill after the arduous road over the crest and before the final dangerous one-lane descent to the highway.
Despite not being able to do big hikes, trips like this refresh my soul. Spending my days in flat lands, in airports and airplanes, in city traffic – that just destroys me. Friends keep advising me on how to take better care of myself on these trips, but I’m actually the expert on that now, and it still doesn’t help. I simply waste away when I’m deprived of access to mountain wilderness.
