Southeast Arizona
Tuesday, November 21st, 2023: 2023 Trips, Baldy, Hikes, Mogollon Rim, Regions, Road Trips, Southeast Arizona, Whites.
I woke up Monday to dense fog and a dusting of snow here at 8,400′. The temperature was 27 and forecast to reach 37. I hadn’t hiked yesterday – in fact, I hadn’t had a good hike in three weeks, partly because my foot condition had returned after five years pain-free. Despite the weather, I was determined to get out into this spectacular alpine landscape.
I knew there’d be more snow at higher elevations – my favorite hike reaches 11,200′. The highway to the trailhead is closed in winter, and the shortcut from town to the highway is a steep and narrow dirt road. I decided to do a lower-elevation canyon hike I’d started once but never finished.
But I packed my winter gear, and shortly after leaving the motel, I saw the turnoff for the dirt shortcut, and swerved into it. I’d never hiked in these mountains in snow before, so I just had to try it!
I found an untracked inch of snow on the dirt road, up to 9,000′, where the highway had 2 inches. Snow was falling lightly, and the direction I was going had been plowed earlier. I was in 4wd and braked to test the traction before continuing.
When I reached the trailhead parking lot, it was untracked, but as I pulled on my pack and insulated Goretex gloves and started off, I heard an engine. It was the snowplow, returning to clear the highway in the opposite direction.
The trailhead is 9,400′, so I knew the temperature had to be in the low 20s. The only tracks in this fresh snow were from animals – elk, fox, cottontail, squirrel, something smaller.
The first mile and a half skirts the long meadows and bogs that cover the level ground on this volcanic plateau, passing in and out of small stands of spruce-fir forest. This was the first time I could remember seeing the meadows in their winter colors.
The first couple of miles of this trail see a lot of traffic in warmer weather, and I stumbled a lot because the snow hid irregularities like rocks, erosional ruts, and footprints in frozen mud. It would be even worse in deeper snow at higher elevations. My goal was at least to reach the spectacular viewpoint on the ridgetop. I was moving slow and making a lot of stops to enjoy a landscape renewed by snow.
When I reached the last clear stretch before entering the main forest, I could see what the snow was doing to the rock formations. I was in for a real treat!
The trail climbs about 3/4 mile through magical old-growth alpine forest before reaching the cliffs. Almost every aspen I passed had someone’s initials in its bark, but in this snow, silence, and solitude I was truly a pioneer.
Many of these photos appear to be black-and-white – but they were all taken in color!
At the foot of the cliffs, the trail switches back to traverse to the ridgetop. This is one of the most spectacular stretches of forest I’ve ever found, and as with everything else, the snow made it new.
I knew the overlook would be socked in with fog, but who cared? The snow up here at 10,200′ ranged from 3-5 inches deep, easily walkable without needing my gaiters. But the undulating bedrock surfaces had been smoothed over by snow, so I had to take special care in climbing to the edge of the cliff.
Having made it this far, I wanted to at least reach the second mass of exposed rock, about a mile farther up the ridge. That turned out to be a slow mile, with traverses of steep slopes where I could easily lose my footing and slide hundreds of feet down the mountain.
After arriving, I was especially wary of crossing this outcrop, since the route is unclear and the footing precarious even when clear of snow. But I carefully made it across, and with most of the day left, decided to keep going.
Past that last outcrop, it’s all alpine forest to the crest of the mountain. I would just keep going until I figured it was time to turn back.
But shortly after entering the forest I came to blowdown across the trail. I knew some of it had been there on my last visit, two years ago in August, and at first it was easy to step over. But I ran into more, and much worse, ahead. To avoid sliding off snow-covered logs, I ended up having to make long zigzagging detours.
After bypassing dozens of these fallen logs, I finally reached the edge of a burn scar. My time was almost up, and the burn scar would allow me to log a GPS waypoint so I would know how far I’d gone.
I hadn’t reached the crest, but I knew I’d gone almost five miles. In snow, that’s worth 50% more! And what a place! I can think of few places that would be as magical in snow.
The fog was lifting, so when I reached the viewpoint I could see past the cloud cover to the center of the plateau, with a sliver of blue sky.
I was wearing my winter boots, which offer maximum support. But on the way down, I could tell I’d done more damage to my foot. Only time will tell if I’ll be able to resume hiking this winter.
When I checked the map back in the room, I found I’d reached 10,600′. And by morning the weather had cleared, so while taking the long way home east across the plateau, I stopped for a view of the mountain I’d partially climbed.
Monday, December 11th, 2023: Chiricahuas, Hikes, Snowshed, Southeast Arizona.
After the relative success of last weekend’s big climb on an unfamiliar trail, I decided to drive over the state line this weekend to re-do a slightly longer big climb that I hadn’t done for over a year. Unfortunately, in multiple instances of wishful thinking, I mistakenly assumed I was back in top shape after more than a year of setbacks, and I forgot how challenging the hike actually is and what limited time you have to complete it once you drive over there.
It was 21 degrees out when I left home, and I packed my gaiters, expecting both creek crossings and patches of deep snow.
Approaching the mountains I was surprised not to see snow on the crest. The temperature at the trailhead, a couple hundred feet lower than home, was still in the mid-20s – colder than I remember in this location – and my uncovered nose quickly got cold, so I hurried through the shady spots. The creeks were lower than I’d ever seen, so the gaiters would just be dead weight.
The first three-mile segment of trail climbs 2,000 feet, with the first mile and a half at a steady 15 percent grade, from oak scrub to ponderosa pine forest. From there it traverses a shaded north slope to the junction with the upper trail. I always forget how hard a climb this is.
I’d seen a couple of footprints on the initial climb, but most people just do the first mile or so, and I was the first hiker on the traverse in many months.
The first payoff of this hike is when you cross into the next watershed, a big east-trending canyon whose head is on the crest of the range. Much of the forest was destroyed in the 2011 wildfire, and at this time of year the rocky, treeless slopes are dominated by ferns in their fall color, rust-red.
What follows is a traverse that climbs 1,300 feet in another three miles – which doesn’t sound like much, but the trail hasn’t been cleared in many years, the footing consists almost completely of loose, sharp rocks, and our wet year of 2022 resulted in erosion of tread and overgrowth of woody shrubs that block the trail in many places. There was no sign that any other hikers had tried this trail in the past year.
I found this traverse so difficult that I had to stop repeatedly to catch my breath, and in the last mile I realized I wouldn’t reach my destination, and began feeling like I’d made a mistake in coming. This trail climbs to a barren saddle, and from there continues across the head of the canyon to its junction with the crest trail. I’d forgotten that it originally took me three tries, simply to reach the barren saddle, and then another couple of tries to reach the junction, which offers a view into yet another big canyon.
You have to be in killer shape to reach that junction quickly enough so you can return down the trail before the cafe closes, and I was not in killer shape now. The six miles to the saddle had taken me almost 4-1/2 hours, and continuing to the junction would force me to hurry down that treacherous loose rock, almost certainly missing my deadline.
On the way down, I gradually became aware that I’d been so distracted throughout this hike – thinking only of my problems at home – I’d barely even been aware of my surroundings. Normally I love the views here, and I had noticed four redtail hawks working the canyon and a young whitetail buck crossing the saddle, but overall, this was the first hike I could remember that I simply hadn’t enjoyed.
To compound my discontent, I developed a leg cramp on the way down, so bad that for about fifteen minutes, I was screaming whenever I tried to move. This was the third hike in a row where I’d developed a cramp, despite drinking plenty of water and adding electrolytes. I’ve been bringing 3-1/2 liters since cold weather started – that was more than enough in the past – but this year I find I’m running out of water before trail’s end, and getting these terrible cramps.
By the time I reached the pine park – the halfway point – my neck, shoulders, hip, knees, and ankles were all aching. I didn’t know if it was due to lack of conditioning, or simply natural aging. My whole routine for the past five years has been oriented toward longer, higher-elevation-gain wilderness hikes. And whenever I find myself losing capacity, I wonder if the loss will be irreversible this time.
On the way down, instead of enjoying the hike, all I could think of was dining in a restaurant and spending the night away from the problems that are crushing me at home. But despite giving up on my original destination, I still ended up cutting the return too close – the cafe was closing so I had to get my burrito and beer to go.
Monday, February 5th, 2024: Hikes, Pinalenos, Round, Southeast Arizona.
For months I’d been wanting to return to the archetypal sky island over in Arizona, to try a trail that seemed to offer the perfect winter hike – mid-elevation so it should be snow-free, devoid of forest so it should offer endless views, and with plenty of elevation change to provide a cardio workout.
This is the range that abruptly rises 6,000 feet above the desert plain like a southeast-to-northwest-trending wall, its crest a tilted alpine plateau – 9,000 feet high at its western edge, 10,700 feet high on the east. A paved road winds up the big southeastern canyon to the crest, where there are campgrounds, but other than that, the flanks are too steep for either roads or cattle. So although this has no designated wilderness like the other ranges I hike, it’s plenty wild.
Most of the trails in the range begin on the plain and climb up a canyon or ridge to the crest, and they’d be blocked midway by snow now. But today’s trail is an unusual traverse of the eastern flank of the range, beginning at 6,000 feet in the southeastern canyon and crossing a half dozen intervening ridges and canyons before finally ascending to crest fifteen miles later.
I was hoping to get about halfway and back in a day hike. But the trailhead is more than a two-hour drive from home – that’s why I don’t come here more often. And although I was ready for an early start, it took me fifteen minutes to get my windshield clear of frost.
I drove west under a cloudy sky, but it was beginning to clear as I drove up the canyon to the trailhead, where I arrived a half hour later than planned.
The southeastern trailhead is on the highway up the canyon, but the map showed that I could avoid the first intervening ridge and thus get farther into the backcountry by taking a short cut from a lower picnic area. I found an older man parked there in a pickup with camper shell; he preceded me up the trail dressed in colorful old-school flannel – making me feel like a real yuppie in my high-tech duds from REI and Patagonia. I soon passed him, and he remarked on how cold it was.
But this first segment of trail, climbing to the first ridgetop, unfolded at an average 15 percent grade, so I quickly shed layers. Sunlight glinted off the snowy crest thousands of feet above, while the thawing dirt of the trail had been deeply chewed up by horses as well as hikers’ boots. Thankfully it was sand and gravel and didn’t stick to my boots like the clay mud farther north. And I was admiring the surrounding igneous boulders and outcrops, which reminded me of my beloved desert.
That first climb was about 1,300 feet, and ended at a knife-edge saddle overlooking a completely new watershed. This was all unknown terrain, miles of it unfolding for me to explore. The tallest peaks of the range glittered above, and I could hear a creek roaring a thousand feet below. Far to the north I could see a prominent stone spire rising from the distant ridge I hoped to reach. From here, it looked much too far – especially since at the end of the day I’d have to climb back up out of this canyon.
The upper part of the descending trail was frozen solid under a thin layer of snow, and was steep enough that I had to go slow to keep from slipping. This trail was literally clinging to the wall of the canyon, with overhangs in some spots. Eventually I reached switchbacks that were mostly in sun, but there were so many I soon lost count. It seemed to take forever to reach the creek.
Brush had been cut recently all along this trail, and cut branches had often been left blocking the trail. The canyon was impressively rocky; the bottom was lined with sycamores; I easily found stepping stones to cross on.
Although the slopes on the opposite side of the canyon were gentler, they were also rockier, with big exposed slabs of igneous rock. After crossing a much smaller side canyon, I reached a bigger side canyon bearing a creek as big as the first, lined with solid rock. I began noticing metasedimentary rock with deformed strata just like the rock on my desert land. This is what I love – much rockier than the landscape around my New Mexico home.
Past that canyon, the trail climbed over a low divide where I reached a junction with an ascending ridge trail, now abandoned, then down into a hollow where I met the lower end of the abandoned trail. The recent trail work ended here, as did the human tracks and horse tracks. And it suddenly occurred to me that despite the lack of wilderness designation, and the gentleness of the grassy slopes all around me, there was no sign of cattle here! How could our Gila Wilderness at home be overrun with cattle, while this range, unregulated and closer to a bigger city, remains ungrazed?
Past that junction, the trail was mostly either blocked by shrubs or overgrown with tall grasses, and there was no sign anyone had gone there for years. But I was able to keep going by reading the landscape.
I made it another two-thirds of a mile before running out of time. My planned destination was another mile and a half farther and 1,200 feet higher, on the ridge that led to that prominent rock spire. With an earlier start, I might’ve made it.
But I wasn’t disappointed; this route had turned out even better than expected. Sure, it’s a challenge climbing over those intervening ridges, but this turned out to be the most spectacular landscape in our region, and I look forward to returning in better shape, and with more time.
I flushed a white-tailed buck out of the second canyon, and a dove out of the brush along the trail, but I was surprised not to see any hawks or eagles.
I took my time climbing out of that first deep canyon. It did take about an hour, but the frozen part was easier going up than going down.
The final descent to the trailhead was mostly in shade. I discovered someone had come partway up on horseback while I was over in the backcountry, so the trail was even more chewed up than in the morning.
I’ve been studying maps of this range for years. As I mentioned above, most trails start on the plain and climb to the crest. But since the catastrophic wildfires of the teens, and the ensuing erosion, all the crest-bound trails on this side of the range have been destroyed and abandoned. So this round-the-mountain traverse is my only option to explore this vast area, and today was just a first taste. I’ll be back!
Another night in a motel, followed by a lonely drive home through a wild landscape.
Monday, March 18th, 2024: Hikes, Pinalenos, Round, Southeast Arizona.
For me, the onset of daylight savings time, in March of each year, means that I can venture farther west for my Sunday hikes – because Arizona rejects daylight savings time, and when crossing the state line, I gain an hour. This is especially important in late winter when the high mountains are still covered with snow, because Arizona offers more lower-elevation hikes, and with daylight savings time, I can leave my home at 8 am as usual, drive 2-1/2 hours, and still hit the ground at the reasonable time of 9:30. Yeah, I’m still not gaining much daylight – but everything’s psychological.
I decided to return to the area with interesting granitic and metamorphic rocks and dramatic topography that I’d started exploring a little over a month ago. It can also be accessed via an old ranch road that would allow me to bypass the initial steep climb and deep canyon and get closer to my original destination, the ridge above the next watershed to the north.
I’d already discovered in a short midweek hike that I’d lost a lot of conditioning during my recent trip back east. Today’s hike would require a climb of over 3,000 feet, but the round trip wouldn’t be much over 8 miles, so I should have plenty of time to stop and catch my breath.
The dirt road to the trailhead is less than 4 miles long, but it took 20 minutes to drive because much of it is rocky. It crosses the mouth of the creek that drains the deep canyon I’d hiked to last time, in a grove of cottonwoods that had just leafed out. Then it climbs past a corral to a bench above the creek, where the trail begins.
There was already a cloud mass hanging over the crest of the range, and as the day progressed, the entire sky filled with scattered, ever-changing cumulus clouds, so that I found myself moving between sunlight and shadow, warmth and chill. Sometimes it became quite dark.
The trail was steep from the beginning. The overall average grade is almost 14%, making it one of the steepest long trails around, with a lot of short climbs in the 30% – 40% range. I soon came to a gate past which the vegetation changed dramatically, and I understood why the broad slopes above are blanketed with stands of tall native grasses – cattle have been fenced out of this entire watershed.
I spent a long time climbing over the rounded foot of an outlying ridge, finally reaching a side canyon that I knew led to the junction with the trail I’d explored last month. Past there, I expected to have to find my own way up the abandoned, overgrown continuation. But the rocks here continued to excite me – so much like the rocks in my desert mountains.
I reached the junction, and had gone a few yards down the main trail when I suddenly realized it had been cleared, and very recently – within the past couple of weeks. I’d actually been looking forward to some routefinding and bushwhacking, but this meant I could go faster and potentially farther.
The trail leads up the gentler left slope of a canyon whose right slope is lined with granite, and a sheer-sided granite outcrop above that slope became my landmark. Below that outcrop, the trail cut sharply left into a smaller side canyon, and the vegetation changed dramatically.
Whereas below, the slopes had been lined with grass and open oak woodland, from here on up they became a steep maze of boulders and thickets of oak, manzanita, and thorny locust.
I was aiming for a saddle on the ridge above, but the convoluted terrain at the head of this watershed required the trail to switch back and forth before getting there. And the grade was still steep so I had to stop often to catch my breath. It had rained here yesterday, and the ground was damp, but thankfully in this granite terrain the trail was sandy, not muddy.
Finally I could see the high saddle up ahead and knew I was on the verge of a new watershed and a new canyon.
Normally in an out-and-back hike, after only going 4 miles I would be only about halfway to my destination. But I’d dreamed about reaching this point for a long time, and I wasn’t in shape to go much farther. Still, I continued down the trail a few hundred yards – the trail crew had continued too – hoping to get a better view. The slope I found myself on had been burned in an old wildfire, but still bore some living pines and firs, whereas the opposite slope, far across the big canyon, was heavily forested.
I now had a phone signal from the city below the mouth of the canyon, and by the time I’d returned a call, I decided to call it a day. I discovered later on the map that if I’d continued only about a half mile, I would’ve rounded a corner and obtained a view of the summit of the range.
Still, I felt great. After going three weeks without a hike, I’d climbed over 3,000 feet and gained a view into a new watershed. And this is still my favorite place for rocks in our entire region.
On the way down, I noticed isolated, charred skeletons of pines rising among the oak thickets on the upper slopes. These slopes which I’d accepted as covered with thickets had once been lined with mixed-conifer forest.
Passing some burned snags cut by the recent trail crew, I caught a strong odor that immediately sent me back to my childhood bedroom with its cedar chest. I leaned to sniff the fresh cut. Years after the wildfire that had killed the juniper, the heartwood retained enough fragrance to fill the air around it.
Past the trail junction, paying more attention to my surroundings, I discovered a few more early flowers. The grassy slopes enabled clear views, and far below me I watched a white-tailed buck crossing between clumps of oak. And when I finally reached the livestock fence with its hikers’ gate, what did I see on the other side but a bull, blocking the trail!
With the fence between us, I yelled at it to move, with no effect. I was in no mood to wait, so I passed through the gate, but on the other side I caught my sleeve on a prickly pear cactus. Standing about twenty feet away, the bull watched me, unconcerned, as I cursed and struggled out of my sweater. By the time I’d picked the tiny glochids out of my elbow, I was more pissed at myself than worried about the bull. It was a young one anyway, and hornless, and it had resumed grazing, ignoring me. I’m still getting used to these local bulls – so far they’ve seemed to lack the aggression of our desert bulls.
I made a short detour around the young bull and reached my vehicle with plenty of daylight left.
The entire crest was obscured by clouds when I left for home the next morning, and a storm brewed to the east as well. That country is littered with low desert ranges that might offer some interesting winter hikes.
Monday, April 1st, 2024: Bear, Hikes, Pinalenos, Southeast Arizona.
I was still trying to rebuild capacity, but most of the high-elevation hikes remained blocked by snow or flooded creeks. I settled on a handful I thought would work, then checked my Dispatches to see when I’d last done those hikes. It’d been a year and a half since I’d done one of my favorites over in Arizona, so I picked that one.
Once again, I underestimated the weather. The forecast for nearby towns predicted cool but not cold, rain in the evening, and windy. I ignored the windy part and the elevation differences.
As I left home, the wind, out of the southwest, turned out to be so bad the interior of the car sounded like a jet engine. My noise-cancelling headphones really paid off.
It’s a two-hour drive, the sky looked stormy, and when I first glimpsed the mountains they were enveloped in a dark cloud.
Even after last week’s experience, I was forgetting about the first mile of the trail, which sees heavy cattle use. The beginning, which winds through a maze of shallow gullies, boulders, and big oaks, was completely trashed by cattle, and there were cattle grazing all over the next segment, which climbs through some granite hills to a narrow gully that carries runoff from the crest.
The temperature at base was probably in the high 40s, and I started out wearing only my sweater. The climbing made me sweaty, but the wind made me chilled, and even after I pulled on my shell jacket my still-sweaty arms were freezing.
The trail past the creek was pocked with the hoofprints of one or more horses, but devoid of human tracks. I’ve always been one of the few people that use this trail, especially from the bottom, and it’s often overgrown and hard to follow in places.
Not long after passing the cattle, I discovered my right thumb was in severe pain that seemed to come from the bone itself. I had no memory of injuring it – it was like a sudden-onset arthritis. I use that hand a lot on a hike, no way around it.
The trail climbs through the foothills until it hits the upper slopes, which require switchbacks and long traverses. Here the wind, and the wind chill, became brutal. My arms were still freezing and I wondered if I should turn back. But as usual I just tried to speed up to generate more body heat.
The horses had destroyed the tread on this part of the trail, dislodging the retaining rocks that the trail builders had laid on the downhill side, resulting in loose, pitted dirt and rocks that were hard to walk on and will erode rapidly. And on the final switchback to a saddle on an outlying ridge, I came upon the severed leg of a recently killed deer. I’d seen a dog track and wondered if the equestrians were hunters?
On the next stretch, the long traverse through dense oak scrub transitioning to mixed conifer forrest, the clouds began to break for a few minutes at a time, and that brief sunlight finally warmed my chilled arms. The wind was as ferocious as ever, but the dense scrub oaks, followed by the big firs, gave me some protection.
Here, the equestrians had ripped branches off trailside bushes and trees – the higher branches they could reach from horseback – which they then dropped on the trail behind them. What were they thinking?
I finally reached the saddle on the crest, finishing a climb of more than 3,000 feet. The wind was bending the trees and roaring like a freight train up here.
The crest part of the trail started out snow-free, but the higher I climbed the deeper it got. Fortunately the beautiful fir forest blocked most of the wind. I managed to climb another three-quarters of a mile and 600 feet higher, reaching a trail junction just below the peak. The snow was up to 8 inches deep there and I could see it would be deeper ahead, requiring gaiters. Knowing there are no good views ahead, I didn’t feel it was worth strapping them on, so I turned back.
This is one of those hikes whose reported distance varies widely depending on your source of info. CalTopo, the mapping platform I use, shows today’s hike at 4.7 miles one-way and 9.4 miles out-and-back, but every other source calls it 5.4 and 10.8 – quite the discrepancy. Based on the time it takes me when I’m in top condition, I’m confident it’s close to 11 miles.
The walk back down the crestline took me in and out of that howling wind. It had to be between 60 and 70 mph up there, yielding a wind chill in the mid-20s, which I was not dressed for. I dug my lined gloves and thermal bottoms out of the pack and stuffed them in the inside pockets of my storm shell, so they’d be warm if I needed them.
As I headed down the switchbacks below the crest sleet began to blow in my face, so I cinched my hood as tight as it would go. I could see rain falling twenty miles across the desert, and a half hour later it was moving down the valley below me, where my vehicle was parked.
I was past the saddle on the outlying ridge, down the long traverses into the foothills, when it began to rain, lightly at first then harder. I had to dig out my rain poncho. Fortunately the lower elevations were much warmer.
At the base of the foothills I rounded a small oak tree and came face to face with a bull. I couldn’t believe it – the third Sunday in a row. I wasn’t even sure I was on the trail anymore, so I backtracked until I realized this had to be it. I simply walked around the bull, and he resumed grazing behind me.
When I reached the vehicle, not only was my thumb on fire, but the palm of that hand was hurting as well, so I took a pain pill. It wasn’t enough – it was aching so bad when I got in bed that night, I had to take a second pill to get to sleep.
