Hikes
Wednesday, December 10th, 2025: Catalina, Hikes, Southeast Arizona.
I’m in transition between major phases of my life – in shock, depressed, functioning at a minimal level. Needing solitude, peace, and quiet to plumb the depths of my loss, not knowing how or when I’ll emerge and the next phase will begin – expecting only that it will come slowly and gradually.
A physical therapy appointment had been made long ago at a stand-alone facility in Tucson. I was hoping to do a challenging hike before the Tuesday appointment, with some pain afterward so the therapist would see how bad it can get. Expecting crowds on trails near the city, I waited until Monday for the hike.
I’ve visited Tucson regularly since moving to southwestern New Mexico 19 years ago – but knowing the trails would be heavily traveled, I’d never hiked there. The nearest trails start in the foothills of the Santa Catalina range on the northern edge of the city, via about 10 different trailheads established from east to west. Tucson would be nothing without this spectacular, 6,000-foot-tall wall of rock at its north, constantly changing color throughout the day.
I chose a trail that my brief online research suggested would be less popular. A glance at the map showed that it starts in a canyon at just over 3,000 feet, then climbs up the east ridge to a saddle before traversing farther up the ridge into the high country. I paid no further attention to distances, elevations, or neighboring trails, assuming that urban trails would be well signed, and I would just go as far as possible in the available time. My hope was to reach pine habitat – ideally ponderosa – but starting at 3,000 feet there really wasn’t much chance of that.
The high in town was forecast to reach the mid-70s, with clear skies. Trailhead parking, in this affluent neighborhood of contemporary mansions on gated streets, was the most deluxe I’d ever seen, with freshly marked spaces for about 40 vehicles and a brass drinking fountain at the entrance. At 9:45 on Monday morning it was almost 90 percent full, so I assume on weekends most hikers have to look elsewhere.
The city ends abruptly at the back yards of these mansions, which directly abut the National Forest. But it’s not just open space – it’s a federally-designated wilderness area, right next to these rich folks’ homes, where a sign claims that bighorn sheep populations are declining due to home building, and gas-powered leaf blowers and other implements spread stressful noise deep into supposedly wild habitat.
I’d never seen such a sharp, stark border between the natural and the artificial. The dissonance increased as I climbed the canyon and both military and commercial airplanes roared overhead. Our homes, our pets, our transport, our recreation – everything we do is at war with the wildlife in our natural habitats.
My hikes in Arizona near home range between about 4,000 and 10,000 feet. At the low end it’s similar to the Mojave Desert, and at the high end it’s similar to my local mountains, but with subtle differences I appreciate more and more over time.
In this lower Sonoran habitat, farther west, the giant saguaro cacti represented the most dramatic difference, but I also quickly found unfamiliar acacias and riparian plants as the trail meandered between boulders up the lower canyon. The trail is named for a rock formation high on the western ridge, and eventually I spotted it looming thousands of feet above, as I passed a pool of water and a tall, solitary cottonwood, and the trail began climbing out of the canyon bottom. By that point, I’d passed four or five other hikers heading back from their short morning walks – none of them talkative.
Almost everything I do now evokes painful thoughts – rock formations evoke painful thoughts, writing a dispatch about my hike evokes painful thoughts. This was an incredibly spectacular landscape, and I tried to enjoy it, but ultimately couldn’t. I was just going through the motions to stay in shape.
Climbing out of the canyon bottom, the trail fell under the shadow of the rimrock cliffs above, and stayed in that shadow for most of the way up. I’d taken off my sweater below in the sun and was cold now, but from here on, the trail became incredibly steep and rocky – basically a series of mostly natural rock steps alternating with long, steep slabs of tilted bedrock. I passed a talkative guy and we exchanged multiple confirmations about what a beautiful day it was, what a beautiful place, how lucky we were, etc.
But the steep traverse below those gloomy cliffs was brutal and seemed to go on forever, rounding outlying shoulder after shoulder, with me hoping each would be the last.
Finally I got high enough for oaks, and eventually I reached a sunny ledge overlooking a funnel-like interior basin where side canyons converged with the main one. I stopped for a snack, and another guy caught up and passed me.
Continuing on the trail, I saw my first juniper of the day, then a tall pinyon pine above in a north-facing alcove. These, which you’d normally find above 6,000 feet at this latitude, emphasized how low the trailhead had been. I lost all hope of reaching ponderosas.
The trail curved back into a shady, semi-forested cove where I had a good view of the opposite slope, across which I assumed my trail would continue traversing up the canyon. The hiker that passed me had worn a bright blue shirt but I couldn’t see him ahead and wondered where he’d disappeared to. And soon I was at an unexpected trail junction.
The canyon trail continued left, but a branch trail went right to a saddle, only a hundred yards and a few dozen feet higher. I thought I remembered the name of the branch trail from the sign at my trailhead, hours ago. Could this become a loop? I sure hoped so – I’d been dreading that steep, rocky return on my hurt knee.
At the saddle, the trail surface became smooth, packed dirt, and on the open grassy slopes below I could see it making long, gentle switchbacks. I decided to chance it being a loop back to my trailhead. At worst, if it led to a different trailhead, I might have to walk a few miles on city streets to get back to the truck.
I shortly met a young woman who confirmed this would return to my trailhead. She asked me about the trail in the other canyon, and I warned her – I wonder if she continued that way after reaching the saddle?
I met several others on the way down, including a stocky, crusty woman about my age who warned me that this trail also got steep and rocky toward the bottom. At least it was all in the sun. She was easily the oldest woman I’ve ever met doing a hike this difficult, alone.
Dozens of switchbacks later, and more than 1,500 feet lower, I reached the steep and rocky part. At this point I was favoring my hurt knee and lowering myself slowly over each rock step. I’m calling them steps – mostly it was stepping down from embedded rock to embedded rock – but trailbuilders had put a huge amount of work into this urban wilderness trail, building steps in many places where natural slopes were just too steep for human feet.
I assumed I’d already gone at least four miles to reach the saddle, and my overall distance would be about eight miles. I was exhausted and sore when I found myself only a few hundred feet above the foothill mansions. The trail dropped into the level sand of a broad dry wash, and all the bootprints appeared to lead down the wash.
Standing in the wash, I didn’t see a continuation of the trail on the other side, so I just followed the tracks. And of course, like in the Mojave, I was soon clambering over boulders and forcing my way through dense riparian vegetation. But the tracks continued to lead me on.
Eventually the boulders became car-sized, then house-sized, and I had to make detours through patches of riparian jungle and lower myself over dry waterfalls. Then I saw a mansion, a couple dozen feet above me, then a bridge crossing the wash, with another mansion above the opposite bank. What the hell had I got myself into?
The retaining walls below the houses and the bridge were all vertical and twenty feet high, so I crept under the viaduct. There was a crumbling, mesquite-choked bank on the other side that I could just barely climb, so I forced my way up it and found myself in someone’s driveway, on a street lined with contemporary mansions. I was looking pretty shabby, and recalled the cleaning lady who’d knocked on the wrong door in a suburban neighborhood back in Indiana, and was shot and killed by the homeowner. He was released, because they have a law allowing homeowners to use lethal force when feeling threatened. I knew this was a gated neighborhood and wondered how deep I was inside the gate.
As I trudged west up the street, totally exposed in this expensively xeriscaped neighborhood, I was approached by a car that slowed down to check me out. I smiled and waved, and the driver continued past. A few hundred yards further, I spotted the gate in the distance. It was opening, and an elderly couple walked through. They crossed the street in front of me, pointedly avoiding my eyes, as the gate began to close behind them. It was closed long before I reached it, so I darted furtively into someone else’s side yard and dropped over their retaining wall into the public street. Ah, the urban-wildland interface!
It turns out the trail did resume across that track-filled wash – I was just misled by all the bootprints in the sand. Either way, this hike was at the limit of what I can do now with my knee injury, so I’m still facing a lot of rehab work ahead.
Monday, December 15th, 2025: Hikes, Little Dry, Mogollon Mountains, Southwest New Mexico.
I didn’t feel like hiking this Sunday, but the night before, I reviewed my options and made a short list.
In the morning, I reviewed my list, and didn’t like the areas I’d chosen. I reviewed the options again, and found a partial hike I could do in an area that appealed to me more.
Finally, on the drive north toward our high mountains, I realized there was another hike on my way that felt more interesting. It goes up a super-rugged, rocky canyon to an 8,200 foot saddle overlooking the next canyon. The rockiest stretch is really slow going, but I figured I would have just barely enough time.
On the long gravel drive to the trailhead – made longer by dozens of washouts last summer that still hadn’t been graded – I was surprised to notice a snowfield just below the 10,700 foot peak. Pretty impressive – our last storm was, what, more than a month ago?
Trailhead parking was empty, a relief after my last hike, in Tucson. Clear skies, temps in the high fifties, but hiking in the sun kept me almost warm enough in my sweater.
The trail begins with a mile of difficult and slow climbing up and down a couple hundred vertical feet over loose rock, finally reaching the creek.
In a bare patch I found fairly recent boot tracks.
The trail in the lower canyon was catastrophically washed out a few years ago, and eventually rebuilt. For some reason, the cliffs above are easier to see now – the canyon bottom used to be a jungle with low visibility.
Blowdown, washouts, and debris flows since our 2012 wildfire have repeatedly invalidated the Forest Service map for this trail, and early GPS routes were low resolution, yielding a mileage to the saddle that I always knew was too low. But the most recent GPS is more accurate. The trail proceeds in five sections: the rocky hike from trailhead to creek, the rebuilt section that mostly uses creekbed and banks, the mid-section detouring around boulders the size of apartment buildings, the gentler final canyon bottom stretch, ending in the long, steep traverse to the saddle.
The trail up the canyon bottom was a slog as usual, but with mostly good tread, and as mentioned above, I enjoyed the exposed boulders, cliffs, and rock formations more than before, with the creek frequently pouring over little waterfalls for a soundtrack.
I’d started late, and by the time I reached the traverse to the saddle I knew I was going to run out of daylight. To make it worse, I had to stop often to catch my breath. But because the fire burned at high-intensity on this slope, regrowth was brushy, providing great views over the spectacular head of the main canyon, and after each stop I kept going.
And when the trail rounded a shoulder into the side canyon where you can first glimpse the surviving mixed-conifer forest below the saddle, I knew I would go all the way, despite having to drive home in the dark.
In the past, this saddle would’ve been only the first milestone as I continued to the crest, or all the way down into the next canyon. But in my current condition, having lost so much strength and cardio capacity, it felt like a real achievement.
The next canyon is one of the biggest and most rugged in the range – and with no trails up it, can only be accessed from the adjoining canyons, with this being the nearest. Aspen seedlings in the saddle blocked my view, so I continued down the trail for a few hundred yards to a rocky shoulder, making my full out-and-back distance exactly 8 miles.
My new physical therapist had recommended using trekking poles when going downhill, so I’d carried them in my pack all day. I’d bought these expensive poles last winter, tried them and hated them. And now, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to assemble them. They’re totally non-intuitive, and the instructions that came with them were pictorial and made no sense.
I ended up using them as much as possible anyway on the traverse, but they kept coming loose, and I couldn’t use them at all in places where shrubs or dense annuals crowded the trail, because the poles would get hung up in the vegetation.
I had a headache, my neck was so stiff I could barely turn my head, there was a sharp pain in my right hip, and both my legs were burning. I knew it would last all night, so I kept putting off taking my pain meds.
The canyon was in deep shadow by the time I reached the bottom of the traverse, and I still had three miles to go, including the hard middle part. But it was beautiful with the rim, high above, lit golden by the setting sun. And for some reason, I noticed the many abandoned mine tunnels, in cliffs on the east side, for the first time.
I finally took a couple of pain pills at the halfway point. The sun had completely set by the time I started the final section, out of the canyon bottom on all that loose rock, but the pills had done their job, freeing me to enjoy my surroundings.
The washed out access road resulted in an hour-and-a-half drive home, but the clear sky revealed a splendor of stars and constellations as I made the final descent into town.
Monday, December 29th, 2025: Chiricahuas, Hikes, Morse, Southeast Arizona.
Returning from a trip to Arizona offered me another opportunity to hike the west side of the range of canyons, normally too far for a day trip. The east side is world-famous, but the west side is known only to natives, accessed via long, lonely highways across a vast, flat agricultural valley.
The map shows a forest road entering the mountains halfway down the north-south trending range, accessing half a dozen trailheads and a couple of primitive campgrounds. Google Maps claimed it would take me only an hour and ten minutes to reach the end of that road from the town on the Interstate where I was staying – the same driving distance as most of my hikes near home.
The trail at the end of the road starts at 6,600 feet and climbs south up a canyon to a saddle at 8,500 feet. From there, a second trail runs east along a ridge, then climbs to a 9,400 foot peak – the southwesternmost peak on the crest of the range – topped with a fire lookout. I’d tried to reach that peak once, from the east side, but the road to the trailhead was so slow that after seven miles of hiking, I ran out of time, only a half mile short.
Whereas that east-side route was almost 16 miles out and back, this would only be 8. It would still be a challenge – at almost 2,800 vertical feet, it would be the most elevation gain I’d attempted since before my knee injury in May 2024.
Beset by trauma after trauma, I’ve been increasingly worried about my mental health. Today, after a healthy breakfast and a cup of fresh-ground coffee, I stopped for gas before leaving town. I left the pump running and ducked inside for a bottle of water. At checkout, the teenage girl, her eyes wide, asked urgently “Are you okay, sir?” Unaware of any problem, I gave her a puzzled look. “You seem really out of breath!” she cried. Still puzzled and convinced I was breathing normally, I paid, went outside, got in, started up, and drove off. Hearing a bashing sound behind me, I stopped. A glance in the rearview – it was only then I realized I’d forgotten to finish at the pump.
This has literally never happened to me before. I got out, picked up the hose handle and returned it to the pump – but couldn’t find my gas cap, which I’d left, as usual, sitting on the rim of the truck bed. Getting down on my knees to look under the truck is really hard with an injured knee and shoulder, so I got in, started up, and moved the truck another ten feet forward. Still no gas cap anywhere, so I painfully lowered myself to look under the bed and around the rear wheels.
Still no gas cap. I actually spent another five minutes looking – until I finally spotted it, twenty feet ahead of the vehicle, out near the street. I was numb with shock. If I hadn’t been in a tiny, remote rural town, with no passersby to witness my astounding dysfunction, I probably would’ve given up and returned to the motel.
Fortunately, I expected an easy drive ahead. The big north-south valley intrigues me. It’s far from the nearest city. And although the highway that runs down it from the Interstate is paved, it leads only to a small, obscure town on the Mexican border, with no significant tourist attractions along the way. Ranging from about 4,000 feet elevation in the south to nearly 5,000 at the north edge, it’s over a hundred miles long and thirty miles wide. It’s dotted with huge but widely-separated agribusinesses – tomato greenhouses, dairy feedlots, beef cattle ranches – and a surprising number of unincorporated residential settlements. Surprising because they’re generally lost amidst the flat vastness.
Seeing much more of it on this trip, it reminded me of California’s great Central Valley – a rural feudal enclave, but in this case, even more remote from urban seats of power and wealth. The big agribusinesses enrich the few by exploiting the many, who live in dilapidated shacks and trailers. And in between, you’re surprised by the occasional remote, isolated mansion. At the north end there are even a few wineries, patronized mainly by RV-driving retirees, and retirees in trailer parks make up the rest of the demographic.
Nearing the turnoff east toward the mountains, I found myself approaching cool-looking volcanic hills, isolated in the middle of the valley, that had been hidden from the north by the curvature of the earth. Then I passed an official highway sign saying “Earth Fissures Possible Ahead”. What the fuck does that mean?
Around the turnoff stood the mostly ruined remains of unidentifiable commercial buildings – a motel? Auto shop? Restaurant? Strip mall? And on the side road, what appeared to be a country school with a tiny, historic-looking library – but no town.
Finally, the paved road ended, the gravel forest road began, and I entered the foothills. Topped by rimrock, grassy slopes golden in the morning sun, all very welcoming. I came to a sign: “Do Not Enter When Flooded”, and after yesterday’s rain, the road was flooded from edge to edge. It looked to be a foot deep in the middle, and my pickup has low ground clearance, but after that long drive I was not about to give up. I backed up, built up some speed, crossed at the very edge and raised spray higher than my truck.
Entering the forest, the road became rockier and steeper. I passed a couple of pickups, saw a compact Japanese sedan, RVs, and city SUVs parked in the campgrounds, wondering what they’d make of the flooded road. But it was quiet here on the west side, and felt very, very remote.
Parking at the end of the road, in a deep dark canyon, I was alone, and I guessed the temperature was in the 30s when I got out, pulled on my storm shell, thermal cap, and gloves, and shouldered my pack. I hadn’t brought my fleece jacket for these temps, but hoped the hike would keep me warm.
The comprehensive, detailed online guide for this range says the trail was recently cleared of deadfall, and the forest had mostly survived the 2011 wildfire, so I was looking forward to easy walking conditions for a change. But a glance at the topo map hadn’t prepared me for this climb up a steep, narrow canyon in morning shade. Much of the trail surface was pine needles on packed dirt, but it was really dark, and really cold!
I immediately encountered what appeared to be recent horseshit, and beyond the first half mile, the well-built trail had been chewed up badly, when wet and muddy, by mysterious hooved animals. I did find tracks of javelina, deer, and bobcat, but the damaging tracks were much bigger, punching deep holes into the trail, and with few exceptions, unshod. There was lots of recent equine scat, and about halfway up, I found logs which had been cut within the past month or two. But I’d never heard of a trail crew in these mountains using horses or mules, and if they had, why weren’t they wearing shoes? I puzzled over the mystery all the way up and all the way down, and I didn’t find a single human track all day.
Despite the steep climb, I was cold all the way up, and again, about halfway up, the dirt was frozen solid. The temperature in this shade was actually in the 20s – I definitely hadn’t dressed for this!
Finally I could feel myself approaching the saddle, where I expected sunlight, and hopefully warmth.
At the saddle, I found myself overlooking a deep, narrow canyon with steep, densely forested slopes – a rare and refreshing sight in our new wildfire regime. The head of this south-draining canyon curves east and is completely hidden from outside. Just under a mile to my southeast rose the peak, and with the naked eye, I could just barely discern the lookout tower peeking above the forest.
To my relief, the trail stuck to the south side of the ridge so I was mostly in sun, and it was a beautiful forest – until I reached a small burn scar on the north slope of the peak. The trail here hadn’t been cleared recently – I stepped over about a dozen logs on the way – a piece of cake compared to the hundreds blocking many of my wilderness hikes.
Approaching the saddle below the peak, I encountered patches of snow from yesterday’s storm, frozen to a hard crust. In that saddle, with view blocked by forest, I met the end of the crest trail, and from there, found an informal, unmaintained trail to the top.
This felt like the first hike since my knee injury that had an actual, dramatic destination. And the view, to the south toward Mexico, was glorious! Mexican mountain ranges, one behind the other, fading into blue haze, with the rugged southern ridges of this range fanning out in high contrast, far below.
I spent a half hour up there, the sun warming me to my core, and I sure didn’t want to leave!
Likewise, when I reached the saddle above the first canyon, I sure didn’t want to drop back into that frozen shade!
I’d brought the trekking poles, and following my new physical therapist’s guidance, I used them all the way down. But I’m not liking them any better, and I found myself stumbling more often with them, than I usually do without them.
My boots are new, having seen only a couple dozen short hikes during the past year, and they were causing sharp pain in both ankles. And by the time I was halfway down, both my knees were in pain, because the ankle pain was changing my gait. So I finally downed a couple pain pills, which would take effect on the drive out.
On this freezing Sunday night, I was surprised to find four vehicles at the remote trailhead turnaround where I’d parked. They were all from a single party, a small group standing around a huge campfire with flames roaring at least a dozen feet tall. They’d walked down to the bank of the creek, fifty feet below the road. I didn’t see tents – was this just some kind of late forest party?
On the road out, I passed four more groups camping – hard-core in these conditions, in this remote, dark canyon, on a weeknight.
And on the long drive up the big valley at sunset, the pain pills worked their magic. If the past year had been the worst ordeal of my life, this was the most rewarding hike I’d done since my knee injury. Maybe I have a future, after all.
Monday, January 5th, 2026: Chiricahuas, Hikes, Silver, Southeast Arizona.
After last Sunday’s breakthrough – hiking to a peak with a spectacular view, after months of frustrating “recovery” hikes – I was hoping for more of the same. But most spectacular hikes on my list either involve too much distance and elevation, or too much bushwhacking. I finally decided to drive over to Arizona yet again, for a peak hike that, when I’m in top condition, would only take a half day. At this stage in my recovery it would advance me a notch, to nearly ten miles out-and-back and over 3,000 accumulated vertical feet.
The day was forecast to be cloudy but with mild temps. However, for the third day in a row – after getting both flu and COVID shots four days ago – I woke up with a migraine and a body that ached from head to feet. Side effects are not supposed to last that long, but it was Sunday and I was not going to miss my hike.
This is the most popular trail in the most popular part of the range, so despite the winter season and gloomy skies, I wasn’t surprised to find three vehicles at the trailhead. A quarter of a mile up I passed a retired-looking couple returning – most people are only in shape for the first mile or so.
I was making good time – clearly recovering my cardio capacity. I’d hoped endorphins would reduce my pain, but by the time I’d gone about 3/4 of a mile I knew I would need pain meds. I’d gotten a late start, and it was also time for a snack. And stopping to dig in my pack, I discovered that I’d failed to bring any food.
This has never happened before! I use a list to pack for a hike. Everything I need is at hand, in its regular place. But I’ve gotten in the bad habit of packing first and checking my list afterwards. And at home this morning, with the splitting headache making me dizzy and confused, I’d just glanced at the food part and assumed it was already packed.
A foundation of my healthy lifestyle is to eat for activity, in a weekly cycle timed with my hikes and workouts. I avoid eating more than I’ll need, but before, during, and after strenuous activity, I always eat and drink what my body needs to recover and build muscle, but no more. There on the mountainside, my whole body hurting, I knew if I turned back to get food at the country store, I wouldn’t be able to complete the hike. I also knew I must be carrying a little fat, somewhere, that my body could turn into energy to finish this damn hike.
So in the title above, “climbing” is an adjective, and “fast” is a noun.
As soon as I resumed hiking in this familiar high desert habitat, I began seeing it in the way I’d been trained long ago – as a natural cupboard, potentially full of provisions. What was here that I could eat? It’s January, one of the worst months for plant food. There would be lots of pinyon pine up above, but the cones would’ve opened months ago, any remaining nuts shriveled and dried. I found one trapped inside a cone but almost cracked a tooth on it, it was so hard.
I immediately thought of cactus fruit. There were lots of prickly pear, but the only remaining fruit were all shriveled up. I’d never heard of anyone eating the yellow fruit of the cane cholla, and there were few here, but I finally came upon one and checked it out. Most of the remaining fruit were unripe, but looking closely at a few yellow ones, it appeared there were no glochids, so I pulled them off and cut them open.
Glochids are tiny, almost invisible hairlike spines that surround the areoles of cacti, where the hard spines emerge. The fruit can be free of spines, but the dozens of tiny glochids will still work their way into your skin and torment you for days, so cactus fruit are normally handled with some kind of tool. My desperation, and the darkness of the day, lulled me into complacency.
After cutting the fruit in half and scraping out the rock-hard seeds, I turned the fruit inside out and scraped at the pulp with my teeth. Even in the greener fruit it was sweet, but there was precious little of it.
I dumped the rest in my shirt pocket and resumed hiking. And now my fingers began burning – glochids after all!
The first 2-1/2 miles climbs 1,200 vertical feet to a shoulder on the north slope, where the trail turns back almost due south into a deep cove. At the top, colorful cliffs and rock formations span both sides of a steep drainage forested with ponderosa pines and Douglas-firs. The trail switchbacks and traverses toward and through the rocks, then out onto the opposite slope. The complicated stretch through those rocks is the most interesting part of the hike.
Emerging onto the opposite slope on a steep stretch of trail, I spotted a leashed dog ahead, and looked for a place to step off and let the owner by. It was a twenty-something couple – they both smiled and thanked me. Past there, it’s a long traverse across a steep slope with dramatic rock formations looming above, eventually entering a patch of fir forest that was particularly dark today.
Approaching the west side of the peak, the trail finally switches back eastward behind huge ramparts of stone, where ten switchbacks of nearly equal length lead you up past the rocks toward the crest. After the long slog on the switchbacks it’s always a surprise to find yourself facing only a short, easy walk to the saddle.
The true peak is a short distance east, but the old fire lookout has the view – if you can handle the precarious, vertiginous concrete steps. The lookout itself burned decades ago – all that’s left now is the concrete foundation.
I’ve been up here in all seasons – there would normally be snow now – and never tire of it.
The only thing I’d brought with any nutritional value was a packet of electrolyte supplement, containing sugar. I’d consumed that hours ago, but didn’t feel hungry. But I did expect my body to start complaining on the way down. As per last week, I dug out the trekking poles to make it easier on my injured knee. And I finally figured out how to use them – which is basically not to push down on them at all, just dangle and tap – until you reach a rocky or steep point where they can help with balance.
Generating less heat on the way down, I pulled my sweater on, and the extra pressure drove the glochids on the fruit in my pocket into my chest, so I transferred them to my pack, and eventually tossed them away. But by then, the damage was done, and I wouldn’t be able to remove them from my chest until I got home.
Much worse, the chronic inflammation in the ball of my left foot had been triggered in the past week – by a new exercise the physical therapist had given me – and this more challenging hike was bringing it out. So I had three thousand feet to descend with two bad legs, slowing me down and forcing me to rely more on the poles, which in turn put more strain on my injured shoulder. I’d had to take more pain pills in the past three days than ever before.
This also highlights another failure of our healthcare system – a hard one to understand, an impossible one to solve. Individualist and competitive social behavior lead to a capitalist economy and the nation-state, imperialism produces reductive science, and the result is healthcare institutions that compete against each other and specialist practitioners that are ignorant outside their fields. So with multiple injuries and health conditions, I’m treated at many different facilities by many different providers, none of whom have access to all my information, and none of whom have time, when they see me, to figure out whether their treatments will have negative consequences.
In the end, the only thing I can always depend on is pain pills – opioids, the “evil” that misguided, Puritanical crusaders keep making it harder and harder for us to get. So I ended my hike a starving wreck, with the pain mercifully shifted into the background for a few hours.
Monday, January 26th, 2026: Hikes, Holt, Mogollon Mountains, Southwest New Mexico.
I’d spent September through November rebuilding my hiking capacity. By December I felt like I was on a path to recovery, but life spun out of my control. I went from 8-9 hikes per month, to only 5 hikes in the past two months.
Still, my brain was stuck in recovery mode, so even with 2-3 weeks of down time between them, every hike had to be more challenging than the last, leaving me in lots of unnecessary pain. Before this latest hike, I even wrote a big note to myself: Take it Easy! But we’d had a two-day storm, and in the end, the only hike that appealed to me was one that would get me up into some snow. It was an old favorite hike I’ve done many times, and this would be the first time since my knee injury that I would try to reach the first milestone – a spring just below the 9,500 foot crest.
Under clear skies, the air temperature in the shade was in the 20s as I began the traverse into the canyon. In a sunny spot where the dirt of the trail had melted, I came upon the bootprints of a lone hiker – probably a man – who had gone out and back yesterday.
Expecting snow, I was wearing my winter boots for the first time in almost two years, and after entering the wilderness area in the first half mile, the stiff boots had triggered a pressure point on the inside of my right ankle, and it felt like someone was driving a nail into the joint.
Three options: (1) dose myself with pain meds, which I hate to do this early in the day, (2) stop, take off my boot, roll back my socks and thermal bottoms, dig the adhesive-backed felt out of my backpack and cut a piece to fit around the hurt area, or (3) keep going and hope it would get better. (Actually, a 4th option would be alternate lacing, but I’m not thinking too well these days.)
I chose option 3, and instead of it getting better, I just decided to put up with it, every step hurting equally for the next 4-1/2 miles.
It’s about a mile to the canyon bottom. From there, the trail up the creek bank is easy for another mile, but after that, the grade up the canyon increases steadily for another mile, to the base of switchbacks that climb to the crest.
And I discovered that, probably because I’d had so many inactive intervals between hikes recently, I’d lost much of my cardio conditioning. Any grade at all – even less than 5 percent – immediately left me out of breath. The farthest I could go without stopping was about 100 feet. How could I possibly make it up those increasingly steep switchbacks?
One thing that kept me motivated was the gaps in the forest opened up by drought-induced tree mortality, providing better views of the rock formations on the slopes above. And at one point I got a glimpse of snow-laden trees on the crest. They were two thousand feet above me – at this rate, and in this much pain, how would I ever make it?
I couldn’t remember ever having to stop so often, but every time, after long minutes of regaining my breath, I continued for another 50-100 feet. I expected deeper snow in shady spots ahead, and my pant legs were already getting soaked from creek crossings, so in the first bare spot I pulled out and strapped on my gaiters.
In shady spots where the snow was deepest, I found the other hiker’s deep tracks overlaid with an inch or so of overnight snow. I knew if I could make it past the lower steep part of the switchbacks, I would have a much easier time on the long stretches traversing the upper slopes of this side canyon. Holding that thought, I finally reached the overlook, on an outlying shoulder at 8,400 feet. This is always an inspiring moment, because you actually look down on the mountain that was looming above you while you were ascending the canyon bottom.
I’d made it most of the way to the crest – but the steepest climb was still ahead of me. As before, I just doggedly continued in very short stages. The steep part faces west and was mostly snow-free. And I eventually made it, to the higher shoulder with a little rock outcrop which is where I stopped the first time I hiked this trail, seven years ago.
Past that outcrop, the trail turns back into shade and gets steeper – hence it held snow, mostly about 4 inches deep. I hadn’t planned to go any farther. But the sight of untracked snow ahead – the other hiker had stopped either at the overlook below, or here at the little outcrop – tantalized me. I believed I had plenty of time, and it’s only another quarter mile to the spring.
What I’d forgotten is that this stretch of the trail crosses two deep gullies on a steep, shady slope where snow drifts two or three times as deep. The first drift completely obliterated the trail. If I lost my balance or slipped crossing that drift, I would slide 60 feet down a 45 degree slope before hitting a log.
But I’d brought trekking poles, and I figured I would just cross the drift a step at a time, taking short steps and kicking a foothold in the drift before the next step. With that, and the poles for balance, it took me about fifteen minutes to traverse 50 feet – but it worked.
Despite the constant ankle pain, the safe crossing and a view of snow-frosted trees above elevated my mood. I was going to make it to the spring after all! I would definitely dose myself with pain meds here, and hopefully have less pain on the descent.
What a magical place! There’s a small ledge below the spring where someone had apparently built a cabin a hundred or more years ago – hauling tools and supplies on muleback, cutting native timber. Now all that’s left is the spring and the ledge. I’ve drunk from this spring many times – delicious – but there’s no trail and the slope is too steep to climb in snow. So I just dosed and started back down, trying to keep as much weight off my ankle as possible with the trekking poles.
On the way up, the pain in my ankle had distracted me from discomfort in my left foot, where I have chronic inflammation that was triggered a few weeks ago. I clearly hadn’t recovered, because on the way down I found myself shifting weight to the outside of that foot. And with weight shifted to the outside of both feet, I soon had sharp pain in the outside of both knees. Of course my right shoulder was in constant pain from the long-standing rotator cuff tear, so the 4-1/2 mile descent was an increasing ordeal.
I reached the bottom of the switchbacks, where it was getting very dark. And halfway from there to the trail junction, I suddenly developed cramps in the inside of both thighs. I literally screamed and fell over on the ground, jerking around in excruciating pain, and couldn’t find a position that relieved the cramps. That nightmare went on for about ten minutes.
After the cramps faded away, the ankle and knee pain became bearable! I made it up the final climb out of the canyon just as the sun was setting behind the range in the west. Sitting in the vehicle, I actually felt free of pain for the first time all day. It had taken me 8 hours to go 9 miles out-and-back.
But at home, the minute I tried carrying my gear up the stairs to my back porch, all that knee and ankle pain came back, worse than ever. Even my shoulder was screaming. So I took another dose of meds, and spent the night waking over and over, never able to find a comfortable position. When will I ever learn?
