Nature
Monday, September 15th, 2025: Chiricahuas, Hikes, Monument, Nature, Rocks, Southeast Arizona.
After sixteen months and three tries, our local doc’s attempts to fix my knee have failed again. I can’t waste more of my precious life on failures. Time for the big-city options, an hour’s flight or up to a five hour drive away.
In the meantime, I’m no longer worried about making it worse. What limits me is the harder the hike, the longer I’m immobilized with pain afterward.
The hike I chose for this Sunday was in the national monument over in Arizona. I wasn’t looking forward to the crowds, but the habitat would be spectacular, the distance manageable, and the elevation changes should be okay for my knee.
This trail starts on the crest, drops down through the rocks into a series of small, narrow canyons, then loops back up to the start. Pulling into the parking lot, I had to pee really bad, so I stepped behind a tree and checked to make sure nobody could see me.
Five minutes later, as I was placing the sunshade in my windshield, I heard yelling and noticed a car passing me, leaving the parking lot. I walked out, asking “What did you say?”
The small SUV was already past, but a middle-aged matron with beehive hairdo leaned out the window and yelled, in a nasal East Coast accent, “If you gotta pee, go behind a tree where nobody can see ya!” I laughed, but I started the hike feeling like everything was against me – my knee, my doctor, the square tourists in this formerly wild place that had been sanitized by the empire into a recreational enclave.
So much disappointment saps your motivation. As I passed one group of out-of-shape tourists after another – cheerily agreeing with them all that it was a beautiful place and a beautiful day – I asked myself again and again what I was doing there. The miles of stone stairways winding through the rocks, result of Herculean labors by the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, actually made the trail harder to negotiate with my knee injury. Our hallowed National Park Service has even provided catchy names for natural features, handed down from English imperial history. I compulsively shot photos for a Dispatch, without really seeing what I was shooting.
I normally hike in remote locations where I’m totally alone and am often the first visitor in weeks, months, or even years. Here, with tourists both in front and behind me, I felt pressured to just finish the damn hike. The rocks became overwhelming, and the only saving grace was the plants – especially the grasses, which were thriving in our late monsoon.
As the trail began descending a side canyon, I could hear a small waterfall hidden in the rocks below. Soon I came to a trickle of water, and finally, to a pool I could cross on boulders. The side canyon emptied into the main canyon and I came to a trail junction. My loop continued onto a traverse across the slope of the main canyon. This part of the loop was much less traveled – even overgrown in places – and here, I became fixated on the grasses.
Nearing the turnoff where the trail left the main canyon to climb back to the crest, a young couple caught up with me – the old cliche of a tiny girl with a huge guy to keep her safe. As they were passing, the boy asked “Have you seen anything cool?”
Surprised, I asked him to repeat, and when he did, I replied “Are you kidding? Everything here is cool!”
That got me started wondering what wasn’t cool – the stone stairs? The tourists? The fact that it’s a national monument?
Natives talk about the time when animals were people. Before humans, animals had to figure out how to live, by trial and error. Then when we came along, the animals became our mythical teachers.
Long ago I came to realize that everything is alive. Everything has its own form of awareness, and the ability to interact with the rest of us.
This place reinforces my notion of rocks as living beings, more than any place I can think of. It’s spectacular, but it can also feel a little spooky. As you recognize human features in the rocks, you realize we’re outnumbered here. Way outnumbered by this looming crowd. Barring some mutual apocalypse, they’ll be here, watching, long after we’re gone.
The lonely traverse up the main canyon, away from the stairs and the tourists, had somewhat lifted my bad spirits. Parts of the trail had reminded me of favorite rocky, shady spots on hikes in the Pinalenos, the Arizona White Mountains, the Mojave Desert, even taking me back to the Sierra Nevada of my youth. Lush, intimate pockets in a vast, monumental landscape.
Sunday, September 21st, 2025: Basin, Chiricahuas, Hikes, Nature, Plants, Southeast Arizona.
We still had a few hot days ahead, and I’d decided to make the long drive north to the volcanic plateau for a level hike through aspens, fir, and spruce. But on my way out of town I pulled over, realizing I really wanted to do the shorter drive southwest to the range of canyons. I didn’t know what hike I would do there, but the drive – on the Interstate and straight, lonely highways – would be so much easier.
I arrived at lunchtime and had a delicious brunch in the cafe first. Then as I drove back into the basin I encountered crowds of birders, and realized I would need something remote and unpopular.
The gnarly road to my favorite trail, lined with big loose rocks, passes a side trail that I’d partly hiked from the opposite direction last year. It’s a boring trail that I’d always avoided before my knee injury – it just goes from road to road, traversing the western slopes of the basin, without any sort of interesting destination. Its only redeeming feature is the occasional views east over the basin.
Storm clouds were gathering over the range, so I might even get lucky and get rained on!
Before heading over here, I’d considered this trail, but rejected it because it would have too much elevation change for my knee. But at this point, what does it really matter?
The remote, boring trail was overgrown with agaves and catclaw acacia. It hadn’t been maintained in years, and there was no evidence anyone had hiked it this year. I walked in and out of dark cloud shadows and narrow ravines. The trail was lined with beautiful wildflowers, some of which looked new to me.
At the halfway point, I rounded a bend and saw a big outlying ridge across a deep ravine – I knew the trail would start climbing that ridge on switchbacks. But it seemed to take forever, first to cross the ravine, then to climb the long switchbacks. In the meantime, I was treated to thunder and the sight of rain, three miles east across the basin.
The whole mountain range was teeming with butterflies – mostly black – but they were too shy to photograph.
I was wearing the knee brace, which masks the pain, but I was sure I was going to suffer later when I took it off. I’ve got it set to allow 45 degrees of flexion, and with that, I can hike normally except on steep stretches. But without the brace, I can’t stand to put any weight on the knee while it’s bent. This is how it’s been for almost 17 months now.
What a boring trail! But what a beautiful day, in a beautiful place. In the past I would’ve stayed overnight, but I have to watch my expenses now that the whole family depends on me.
Sunday, September 28th, 2025: Hikes, Little Dry, Mogollon Mountains, Nature, Plants, Southwest New Mexico.
Since I injured my knee in May 2024, I’ve been looking for hikes that don’t require me to climb very much. But one of the reasons I moved here is that we’re in the mountains.
Before the injury, elevation gain was my main goal, and the hikes I did most often went from canyon bottoms to the crest, with elevation gains ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 feet. So I’ve avoided all those familiar hikes for more than a year.
I’m currently trying to limit myself to roughly four miles out and back, and while reviewing options yesterday, I realized one of those hikes actually has minimal elevation change during the first three miles. Past the two-mile point it involves a lot of bushwhacking and rock-hopping, and the farthest I’ve ever been able to go is seven miles, with 4,200 feet of elevation gain.
The last time I’d done it was January 2024, when I was stopped by deep snow on a high saddle at the four-mile point. I was curious to learn how much rain that watershed had seen during this weak monsoon.
It turned out that the long gravel road to the trailhead had been washed out or buried under recent debris flows in dozens of places. It was barely passable in my 2wd pickup truck (the Sidekick needs a new engine).
Eventually the road climbs to the ridge. Considering the remoteness and the condition of the road, I was surprised to find another vehicle at the trailhead. I hoped to run into the other hiker(s) to find out how far they’d gone and what they’d seen in some of my favorite habitats.
The weather was perfect – in the low to mid seventies, with drifting cloud shadows. The trail starts out following the remains of an old road servicing long-abandoned mines. It doesn’t enter the wilderness until about a mile in, and I’ve run into cattle on that lower stretch. As I got closer to the creek I could hear it rustling over the rocks.
Past the first crossing, I remembered the lower part of this trail had been destroyed by a flash flood a few years ago, and finally rebuilt in late 2023. In this steep, narrow canyon a trail is virtually unmaintainable, and much of the upper trail consists of picking your way through debris flows and over logs.
I used to call this canyon “the jungle”, and it didn’t disappoint. My first landmark would be the old cabin, but I missed it in the dense vegetation. I was looking for the point where the canyon makes a 60 degree turn east – that would be my two-mile point. But with the dense riparian forest and overhanging cliffs, I actually missed the turn and went beyond it, to the major side canyon. I couldn’t remember whether this was before or after the turn in the main canyon, and my national forest map wasn’t detailed enough, but it had taken me an hour and a half to get there, so I figured I’d gone far enough.
The knee brace masks any pain, and I felt like going farther, but knew I shouldn’t. Returning was easier, and finding the cabin, I was surprised to see how much it had deteriorated inside in only a few years. Nothing has been removed, it’s just messier.
Past the first creek crossing, the old road climbs, and I got some nice views. I was sorry not to see the other hiker(s), and wondered if they were backpacking. I sure miss getting back into that wilderness, one of the wildest in the world.
On the road out, I passed two youngish women in a side-by-side – probably from the small group I’d seen camping near the highway. Americans are far, far too affluent – the hot thing among blue collar families now is to own a huge pickup truck, a massive fifth-wheel “camping” trailer, and a side-by-side or rock bouncer – almost as expensive as your house, all bought on credit. You drive the whole setup just off the highway and live in it while exploring the back country in the little utility vehicle.
I also got a better view of the mature ponderosa pines in the lower canyon, which have all died recently. I’m guessing a series of debris flows have suffocated their roots – I’ve seen that happen elsewhere in the aftermath of big wildfires.
Tuesday, November 4th, 2025: Dragoons, Hikes, Nature, Rocks, Southeast Arizona.
Saturday morning. I was in Tucson, at the quiet, secluded courtyard hotel, in a residential neighborhood next to a huge park, where I’ve been staying on occasional visits for almost 20 years. Friday had been a miserable marathon of urban driving, traffic, looking for and failing to find solutions for my 18-month-long knee injury and my declining mom’s 14-month-long housing, care, and treatment crisis. The day had ended with four hours of tearful empathizing with caregivers and children of declining elders, leaving me an emotional wreck.
I’d left home Thursday afternoon hoping to make a mini-vacation out of this trip, but now that I really needed it, I was scheduled to check out of this peaceful retreat and make the three-hour drive home amid convoys of oblivious tractor-trailer rigs and Texans in giant pickup trucks seething with incipient road rage.
I couldn’t justify another expensive day and night in the city. My health was already suffering from the stress of driving, and my fitness had been set back, missing two workouts and a midweek hike at home. But the next day, Sunday, was the day of my longer weekly hike. What if I split the drive home into two short segments, stopping along the way to explore hiking areas I’d been researching for years? These are areas that are too far from home for a day hike, but nagging because I pass them regularly on longer trips.
My one feeble attempt at vacation life was breakfast at Hotel Congress downtown, a legendary hipster hangout which seems to have been colonized by retired tourists.
The first stop on my return trip was a relatively small mountain range that straddles the interstate highway. The interstate climbs to a pass in the small northern part of the range, where spectacular granite boulders remind me of my beloved Mojave Desert. But the larger southern part of the range has the hiking trails, branching out from what I’d always assumed was some sort of park or monument.
The long, lonely drive south from the interstate, past vacation homes and hobby ranches hidden in desert scrub, changed from paved to gravel when it turned toward the mountains. Spectacular granite cliffs rose straight ahead, so I pulled off the wide gravel road for a photo. Returning to the Sidekick, I noticed a vehicle approaching to pass me.
Driving at high speed on the wrong side of the road, it was a small Japanese sedan. I pulled out and followed it, trying to figure out what the driver was doing so far to the left. Sometimes on a dirt or gravel road where there’s no traffic, you drive on the wrong side to avoid potholes or washboard, but this road was both wide and smoothly graded. The car ahead continued to race away on the wrong side of the road, and when other vehicles approached, it would pull over briefly, then return to the other side.
When we reached a 90-degree bend at the foot of the mountains, the wrong-side driver suddenly pulled over to let me pass, and I saw that it was an old man with long hair and a stringy beard, looking distracted. I continued south into a narrow valley between granite cliffs on my right and low hills lined with oak and juniper to the east. Instead of a park or monument, I passed small rustic homes and ranches, crossing and recrossing a dry creekbed, until the road dead-ended in a small Forest Service campground in the shade of giant boulders and venerable oaks. There, I studied my map and learned that I’d already passed the parking area for a short trail up a boulder-lined slope, so I drove back, parked next to a small city SUV, and set off up the trail.
I had no expectations for today’s hike – I just wanted to get a feel for the area. I was exhausted and depressed after my failed city trip, but the climb, winding steeply through narrow gaps between boulders, reminded me so much of the Mojave, it felt like I’d been temporarily transported far away from my crushing problems.
I could see a saddle on the crest about a thousand feet above, but my map showed the trail ending a couple hundred feet below it. Tracks showed this was a popular trail, and I knew there was a party ahead of me. But after the first quarter mile I spotted a boulder pile to the right of the trail with a promising-looking hollow underneath. And crawling inside, I found pictographs.
As I said, I’d studied this area in advance, and although I hadn’t seen anything about pictographs, I remembered reading something about an “Indian trail”. This must be it! When I rejoined the trail, I discovered steps cut into the rock leading upward – steps that looked suspiciously non-Colonial. It may now be worth mentioning that this “rugged natural fortress” was the headquarters and refuge for Apache chief Cochise.
I found the next alcove with pictographs hidden in a bigger boulder pile above the first one.
Fully sensitized, I scouted farther afield, and immediately found another rockshelter containing a big sheet of plastic, under which someone had left a sleeping bag and sleeping mat. Sand had washed down over it, showing it had been there for a while. Who had left it, and why? The cliffs and boulders should be attracting climbers, but I had a hard time imagining them driving to this remote spot, far from the nearest city, then leaving valuable gear in such an exposed spot right off the trail. It looked more like the stash of a homeless person than that of a yuppie.
I continued, checking every likely rockshelter, and soon found another stash – this time a single backpacking pad laid loosely under an overhang just off the trail. What’s going on here – road-trippers walking a few hundred yards up the trail, spending a night, then abandoning their gear?
Right about then I heard the other party, a couple of guys, talking somewhere high above the trail. I never saw them, but I soon came upon a big ledge across the main drainage, where a thin stream of runoff had filled a small rock pool. The view was spectacular, and still tired, I decided to make this my endpoint and return to the vehicle.
Approaching the stone steps near the first pictograph site, I heard voices, and suddenly came upon a tall, attractive couple in their 20s, dressed and outfitted like they had just stepped out of an upscale suburban fitness center pumping loud techno. I smiled and greeted them, but they both frowned at me – trained not to smile at strangers, dismissive of older people, or just having a lover’s spat? I asked if they’d seen the pictographs, and I had to rephrase the question a couple of times before the bearded young man uttered a curt “Yes”, still frowning.
I wished them a good day, and returning to the parking area I found their immaculate, late-model 4-door Jeep Wrangler lifted on big AT tires. Clear evidence of progress – at their age I’d been dressed in thrift-shop castoffs, driving a 15-year-old, battered and oxidized VW Beetle.
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