Mogollon Mountains
Monday, June 17th, 2024: 2024 Trips, Gila, Hikes, Middle Fork, Mogollon Mountains, Regions, Road Trips, Southwest New Mexico.
The paired wilderness areas north of my hometown, the first established in the U. S., encompass almost 1,200 square miles of mountainous terrain. After I moved here 18 years ago, it was another 12 years before I found the time to begin exploring them on foot.
There’s a challenging dirt road, closed in winter, that runs north between them, but apart from that, this vast block of wilderness creates a roadless barrier between us and the rest of the state. I’ve long been curious about the north end of the wilderness, but until now I’d never ventured up there, because it requires a three-hour drive around the perimeter, most of that on rough dirt roads.
But with travel and joint pain forcing me to give up hiking since early May, I was going stir crazy. It’s been hot here, and I found myself longing for the cool shade of our high-elevation mixed-conifer forests. I could find that near home, but the highest point I can drive to is up on that northern edge of the wilderness – the legendary road, also closed in winter, that traverses the entire northern edge.
I’d driven up there from the west a few times to hike the crest trail, but past the trailhead, the road continues into terrain I’d never seen, terrain that’s got to be among the most remote in the lower 48 states. Although it’s crisscrossed with dirt forest roads and ranch roads, there are no paved roads anywhere near it. It’s a two-hour drive on rough dirt tracks from the nearest paved road or cell phone signal. It’s a three-and-a-half hour drive from the nearest small towns, and a five-hour drive from the nearest city.
The mountains rise to almost 11,000 feet, and the lowest points, the canyon bottoms, are nearly 7,000 feet in elevation. Once I reached the end of the paved road in the tiny ghost town, I entered the cool forest of pines, firs, spruce and aspen, and began climbing over 2,000 vertical feet on a rocky and deeply eroded dirt road that in many places was only wide enough for one vehicle. For the rest of the day, I would approach every blind curve not knowing whether a big truck would come barreling around it toward me, and if we didn’t collide, one or the other of us would have to yield and back up to the nearest wide spot.
The road tops out at 9,000 feet and begins traversing the north slope of the high mountains, winding in and out of deep drainages, with a long view to your left across a 3,000-foot-deep canyon to another big mountain in the north. I needed a break from the dangerous driving so I turned off as soon as I reached the traverse.
These slopes burned patchily but at high intensity in the 2012 mega-wildfire. My turnout remained forested, but a dirt track led upward into the burn scar, to a small cleared plateau which had probably been used to land firefighting choppers, and I hiked up there, about a third of a mile, to get a view north. This scar had filled in with dense New Mexico locust, which was in bloom.
Not a cloud in the sky as far as the eye could see, but a thin haze hung in the canyons and lowlands. Breezy and cool up here, but the day was obviously going to be warm.
That high traverse is only a little over five miles long, but takes about twenty minutes to drive. I soon came upon a Ford Escort – you can’t drive a car up here, but city SUVs will just about handle it. The little SUV was backing toward me, so I waited to see what he was up to. He pulled to the left for some reason and let me past – a retired couple out sightseeing.
I passed the trailhead that was the farthest I’d driven before. From now on, everything felt more and more remote. I encountered a couple of widely-separated trucks, but the traverse has plenty of wide spots for passing. In and out of dark forest, locust-choked burn scars, and black volcanic talus slopes. Finally I reached the end of the traverse and descended onto a long, narrow east-trending ridge, with a steep dropoff at my right to the deep canyon of a major creek. From studying maps, I knew the road would eventually descend to the creek, where there would be a campground.
The landscape ahead of me to the east was rolling terrain, averaging 8,000 feet, burn scars and grassland punctuated in places by higher forested mountains with gentle slopes. It reminded me somewhat of my beloved White Mountains of eastern Arizona, although nowhere near as spectacular. The best thing about this area was its remoteness.
The heights had been dry, like most of our region for the past three months. So it was a relief to see the creek running through dense willows and lush grasses beneath tall pines and firs. However, the road soon turned away and entered the harshest burn scar I’d ever seen in this region. Apparently the soil and its seed bank had been scorched and sterilized, so as far as the eye could see the low slopes were lined with nothing but dry grasses and annuals beneath the snags of burned tree trunks.
After climbing to a plateau at 8,000 feet, the road stretched out due east, almost perfectly straight for seven miles. I passed a little Jeep SUV, and came upon a big truck with a huge fifth-wheel trailer, parked in the road, which was fortunately wide enough to pass. A beautiful young girl wearing hippie garb sat on an ATV in front of the truck, and I waved as I slowed to pass.
A mile farther, nearing the end of the plateau, I came upon a Forest Service truck that stopped next to me. The driver said to be careful because a truck was broken down up ahead. He said the RV I’d passed was part of the same group, waiting for help. It was Sunday and I figured the nearest operating tow service would be four or five hours away.
I passed the disabled truck and descended into a shallow, grassy valley where the road turned south, and spotted a little lake below forested hills at the far end.
This was the reservoir of a creek that been dammed – maybe for ranching originally, but now for recreation. The road had been skirting the northern boundary of the wilderness the whole way, and the reservoir lay at the center of the northern boundary. It was hard to imagine a more remote place, but it looked well-maintained.
It’d taken me four hours to get here, and by chance it was noon. The big parking lot was empty, and I could see only two or three vehicles in the campground that sprawled back in the forested hills above the lake. I drove up to a scattering of unoccupied picnic tables overlooking the lake and found one in the shade where I started on the snacks I’d brought, and made the unusual decision to have a daytime beer.
Sitting there with that idyllic scene laid out before me, featuring ponderosa pine, the west’s iconic tree, I couldn’t help thinking of my dad. He’d love this place, once all the chores were done and he could relax. So many of us – Calvinists, WASPs, northern Europeans – both benefit and suffer from the compulsion to put work before pleasure, and the beer was helping me self-medicate.
Too much of the day remained for me to even consider driving home, and I wanted to try an easy hike. But this area was too exposed for such a cloudless day. I decided to drive back to the creek crossing and check out a trailhead I’d passed on the way here.
I pulled into the small dirt lot at the trailhead alongside a big truck, and a short man jumped out holding an even shorter fishing rod. “You fishin’?” he asked with a smile. I said no but wished him luck.
The trail entered the big trees where a smaller tributary joined the main creek. I saw the fisherman scrambling over rocks and stopping to cast a fly on a long line upstream. I’d never seen such a short rod used for fly casting.
The narrow valley was beautiful, lined with dark volcanic bluffs, the trail winding through shady groves and sunny meadows, the creek always near, murmuring over rocks. Birds and butterflies were everywhere – swallowtails, woodpeckers, flickers, bluebirds. I made it more than a mile and a half – my knee complaining every time I had to step over a log or boulder – finally emerging into a wide, shady “pine park” where the creek flowed wide and shallow and I watched native trout hatchlings shimmy their way upstream.
On the hike, I’d felt a lot of pent-up energy rising to the surface – my body really missed being put to work. I felt like I could’ve walked all day, but would’ve ended up in serious pain. Still, I was happy, and temporarily at peace, just being there.
As I mentioned before, the traverse along the crest is pretty nerve-wracking, never knowing when or what you’re going to meet coming around those blind turns. But I was plenty calmed down. I did encounter one truck that was coming faster than was safe, but I had enough space to pull over and wait for him to react. I actually ended up passing the sightseeing retirees again toward the end of the traverse.
The descent to the ghost town is the most dangerous part, because it includes really long blind, narrow stretches where backing up safely would be almost impossible. But I made it to the bottom without meeting anyone, only to reach the abandoned cabin – the most remote of all the cabins in the forest above the ghost town – to find a truck pulled over and people standing in the road.
I stopped next to them, and a tall man introduced himself as the new owner of the abandoned cabin. A young girl leaned out the driver’s window of the truck, and another man squatted outside, sharpening a chainsaw. They all seemed really excited. Having a cabin in the forest like that would feel like a dream come true until the next wildfire and the ensuing flash floods tearing down the canyon, destroying your access if not the cabin itself.
From there, it was a short drive to the paved road and the ghost town, the next scary stretch of twisting one-lane descending to the mesa, and finally rejoining the lonely north-south highway. I could more or less take the highway home on autopilot, until when approaching the gate of our biggest ranch, I spotted what looked like a small mammal ahead in the middle of my lane.
I was going 65 but had enough road left to carefully slow down. The thing wasn’t moving, but when I was close enough to focus on it, it looked exactly like a porcupine, facing me with all its quills erect. Porcupines supposedly live around here, but I’d never seen one. This one wasn’t yielding right of way, but another vehicle was coming fast behind me, and I suddenly realized that what looked exactly like a porcupine was actually the top of a narrow-leaf yucca that had rolled onto the highway! So I swerved around it and stepped on the gas.
By the time I returned home, I had driven over 200 miles, ascending and descending nearly 20,000 feet of accumulated elevation. And I’d still only driven about a third of the way around the perimeter of our wilderness!
Monday, July 1st, 2024: Hikes, Mogollon Mountains, Southwest New Mexico, Whitewater.
Today’s hike would be another experiment with knee pain, so I was looking for something with gentle grades. But it was forecast to be a hot day, and the only way to mitigate the heat is to hike a shady canyon or a high-elevation crest. All the canyon hikes involve steep grades, and most of the crest hikes involve a long drive. I’d initially decided to bite the bullet and do the boring crest hike near town, but on a last-minute impulse I headed west instead, to take the “short” trail down into the big, spectacular west-side canyon, hoping to explore the newly-opened tributary that had intrigued me on my last visit, in February.
I was so anxious to explore a new trail that I conveniently forgot that this route involves dozens of steep grades, with big rocks to climb over, all of which would be hell on my knee.
Plus, it’s lower-elevation – below 6,000 feet, lower and hence hotter than home, and mostly exposed. My heart sank when I got out at the trailhead – it was already sweltering at 9:30 am, with not a cloud anywhere in the sky.
I hoped for monsoon storms in the afternoon, but until then I would just be sweating through my clothes.
Since I wasn’t wearing a knee brace, it was all about using my left leg to raise or lower myself at every step so I could avoid bending and putting weight on the right knee. I was really strict about that, so I went slow, and it worked. But it meant my left leg was being overworked from the beginning, and it took longer to reach the shade of the canyon bottom.
Once past the big side canyon, it got even harder – I’d completely forgotten how steep and rugged this trail is. I was thinking how this was perfect snake weather, and sure enough, encountered a medium-sized rattler as soon as I reached the canyon bottom.
This is one of those canyons that’s full of house-sized boulders – fallen down from the cliffs above – so the trail constantly has to climb steeply around them, sometimes with points where you need to make bouldering moves, which was hard on both my knee and my shoulders, which are in much worse shape. It ended up taking me three hours to reach the creek crossing that marks the junction with the tributary canyon – a hike of little more than three miles.
On the way, I spotted a single tiny cloud, far up the canyon, and prayed for more.
Whereas the creek had been flooded by snowmelt in February, now it was shallow enough to stagger across on barely submerged rocks in my waterproof boots. On the far side, there was no sign that anyone else had been this way since a crew had cleared the trail nine months ago. It made sense – the winter flood had blocked the crossing until late spring.
I was really excited to be exploring a new canyon! It turned out to be a narrower version of the main canyon – full of house-sized boulders and choked with dense riparian vegetation.
But struggling up and down those steep grades, working to protect my knee, ended up being worth it when I reached the “swimming hole”! This is only the second bedrock pool I’ve found in six years of exploring our local wilderness. Unfortunately the rock pool was lined with algae from the recent dry season – hopefully that would get scoured out in the next monsoon flood – so although I was literally dripping with sweat I wasn’t anxious to take a dip here. But it was a beautiful spot.
Past the swimming hole the trail entered a stretch of canyon that had been filled with debris from catastrophic post-wildfire floods, then filled in by thickets of riparian trees – primarily ash and alder. Here, the trail had little tread per se, being mostly just a vague route over the debris, further challenging my knee and shoulders as I often had to reach out for balance. And those thickets made for claustrophobia.
This canyon drains parts of the crest – 4,000 feet above where I was today – that I’ve hiked many times from other directions. So I was hoping today’s hike would add to my knowledge of the range. But too often my view of the slopes above was blocked by dense riparian vegetation.
Storm clouds had been building overhead, and I was getting some shade now, but it remained hot down there.
I entered a narrows with a sheer 1,000-foot-tall cliff on my right, and here, the trail finally climbed out of the canyon bottom and traversed the left slope through mixed-conifer forest. I’d reached my turn-around time, but through gaps in the forest ahead I thought I could see more light, possibly the end of the dark narrows and a wide place in the canyon. I wanted some sort of milestone to mark the end of my hike, but that dark, towering cliff on my right never seemed to end.
Finally I reached an open talus slope and decided to turn back. But my GPS device failed to find a satellite – the cliffs were blocking the sky – so I decided to keep going, and a quarter mile later the canyon began to emerge from the shadow of the cliff, and I was able to connect with a satellite and record my location.
Trying to protect the knee, I hadn’t been able to go as far as I’d hoped. I need to do something about all three of my bad joints – hiking like this is just not sustainable.
Lightning was now striking nearby, and one thunderclap was so loud it shook the whole canyon. Soon it began raining in earnest, and I took shelter under a spreading oak to pull on my poncho. Despite being in a narrow, steep canyon, there’s no danger of flash flood in storms like this – the cells are just too small and short-lived. As usual, this one lasted about twenty minutes.
Back at the big creek crossing, I was still hot and sweat-soaked, so I stripped down, rinsed my hat and shirt, and laid down in the creek. This in itself was really difficult and painful, because it required bending the bad knee and straining the bad shoulders, but it was bliss to lie in that cold water and rinse off the sweat.
Wearing the wet hat and shirt on the way back kept me from overheating, but all the steep grades, up and down, over and over again around those house-sized boulders, wore me out to the point where I almost doubted that I could make it. Those mini-grades amount to hundreds of vertical feet in a mile of distance, but none of them register in the GPS routes because GPS averages at longer intervals.
I was also running low on drinking water, and had to stop twice with bad cramps. The fact is, we just don’t have easy trails – all of our trails are too challenging for someone with my joint problems.
But with a final Clif bar and judicious use of my water and electrolytes, I made it back to the vehicle. It had taken me 7-1/2 hours to walk ten miles. Walking slowly and carefully had minimized the damage to my knee, but my shoulders were aching from being triggered several times. I could see a broad, heavy storm darkening the sky southwards toward town.
I’d left a liter of water on ice in the vehicle, and I used that to hydrate before hitting the road. But within ten minutes of driving I developed cramps so bad I had to pull over, get out, and stagger around for fifteen minutes until they finally began to subside. And sure enough, I drove into the storm farther south – some of the heaviest rain I’ve ever driven through.
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.
Thursday, January 23rd, 2025: Hikes, Mineral, Mogollon Mountains, Southwest New Mexico.
First hike since October. Knee still hurting, worse than ever. Hoping to get a shot in about a month. Meanwhile planning to hike through it, trying various hacks.
Back in my mountains after 7 weeks in purgatory, praise the lord. Missing my mom, this one’s for her. Emotionally numb, in denial. Lonely.
Headed north to revisit a spectacular canyon, 500 feet lower than home. Temps hovering around freezing, clear sky, a dusting of snow on north slopes above 8,000 feet. Unusual number of small hawks swooping along the road.
Creek lined with lovely, thick ice from recent temps in teens. Much more water than I expected, runoff from sun on snow and ice higher up. Fall color lingering on fallen sycamore leaves. Magical place.
Tricky creek crossings on icy rocks between frigid pools a foot deep. Trying out trekking poles in hopes they’ll help my knee – they help in creek crossings but are awkward on this rocky trail and useless and in the way in many places.
Much earlier than expected, after maybe a half mile, I reach a crossing I can’t do without getting my feet and legs soaked.
Heading back, I can tell my knee’s going to hurt bad tonight.
