Mogollon Mountains
The Dark, the Wet, and the Cold
Monday, November 17th, 2025: Hikes, Mogollon Mountains, Southwest New Mexico, Whitewater.
Since the new knee doc said I could continue to hike without damaging my knee – and since for the past month I’d been limiting myself to 6 miles and 1,500 feet of elevation gain – I felt ready to tackle a little more mileage and elevation. But in my now-vast library of regional hikes, most options over 6 miles result in more elevation gain than my body is ready for.
I ended up with only two alternatives in less than a two-hour drive from home. But one of those was the partial hike of a trail I’d done many times, and ended at a very undramatic spot. The remaining option was a trail I’d never hiked before, a trail the official websites said had suffered catastrophic washouts and had been impassable since the 2012 wildfire.
The reason I was willing to try it was that in the previous week, I’d found a recent online trip report that said the trail had been at least partially cleared. But – on the eve of departure I could no longer find that trip report.
On top of everything, I’d had a very challenging couple of weeks and kept telling myself I needed a pleasant, fun hike – not a grueling bushwhacking, routefinding challenge. But in the end, the allure of hiking an unfamiliar trail and penetrating new habitat proved to be irresistable.
As usual, before leaving, I checked the weather forecast – but crucially, I only checked the forecast for town, which was for clear skies and a high just over 60. My first surprise occurred when the highway turned north and clouds appeared ahead, and my biggest surprise occurred when the high mountains appeared, partly obscured under a dark storm. That was my destination.
Since our weather finally turned cool, I was prepared for fall conditions – sweater, storm shell, thermal cap and glove liners – but not for winter weather, which in the past would’ve been essential in November. Winter wear includes thermal bottoms, fleece jacket, and insulated Goretex gloves.
Today’s trail starts on the rocky backcountry road – usually closed by now – that traverses the northern boundary of our big wilderness area. This road climbs a narrow, dark canyon with steep sides. The trail itself climbs over a ridge and descends into the biggest canyon on the west side of our high mountains, continuing up the other side to a junction near a 10,200 foot peak. When I was at peak fitness this trail had never appealed to me, even as a routefinding bushwhack, because it spends most of its time below 8,000 feet. But if I could reach the bottom of the big canyon today that would net me 7.5 miles and 2,400 vertical feet.
Two big pickup trucks from Texas had parked in such a way as to block the entire parking area for the trailhead. I’d passed dozens of hunting rigs on the way here, so I assumed the pickup drivers would be hunting somewhere along the trail ahead of me – not a pleasant thought. But I’d driven most of two hours to get here, so I continued to another parking spot about 500 feet up the road.
My previous hikes from this road had started more than a thousand feet higher, in the burn scar in former spruce-aspen forest. Here the forest was intact, but the trail started dauntingly steep. In fact, I couldn’t imagine anyone hunting deer in such steep terrain with such dense forest. Deer hunters seem to prefer level ground and open woodland where you can keep a steady eye on moving game and easily follow it on foot.
But my concerns were more immediate – making steady progress on steep grades, up and down deeply eroded gullies, and staying dry – it began to drizzle, then rain hard enough for my poncho, in the first quarter mile. Not what I’d planned for at all! I realized I should’ve checked the forecast farther north.
Despite the official warnings, it was a good trail, with narrow but level tread, and most deadfall had been logged. The habitat – high-elevation pines, fir, and eventually spruce, with occasional lichen-covered boulders – was beautiful in the rain. Still, it was so steep that I had to stop often to catch my breath. When I finally felt the saddle approaching, I checked the time, stepped under a pine to get out of the rain, and dug out my map. It’d taken me an hour to go only a mile and a half. Hopefully I’d make much better time on the descent into the canyon – but then I’d have an even longer ascent on my return.
In the saddle, I stepped into a howling barrage of drizzle. As usual, my view of the big canyon was blocked by treetops, but when I climbed a rock formation to shoot a panorama, rain spotted the lens.
From here the trail traversed across the ridge, and when the rain stopped I was able to get a panoramic view across the big canyon. The burned slopes on the opposite side were colored vivid red and gold by oaks, maples, and locusts, but the entire landscape under the storm was so dark, the colors were almost impossible to capture with the camera.
The traverse continued around a rocky shoulder, below dramatic outcrops made forbidding by the storm. Rain had abated and I took off the poncho and replaced it with my storm shell. This was the prettiest stretch of trail, until it descended into a washed out gully where the footing changed dramatically.
Rounding another shoulder, the trail began descending, in long switchbacks, a brushy slope that consisted of pale crumbling rock. Brush, and older logs, had been cut in years past, leaving an open corridor across the crumbly rock but no level tread, so you were continuously side-hilling instead of walking, and mounds of beargrass or bunchgrass every two or three yards had to be climbed over hundreds of times on your way. Plus at the ends of the switchbacks there were deep gullies with precarious crossings where tread completely disappeared and I had to use boot edges and reach for handholds.
Meanwhile the storm clouds temporarily parted, revealed patches of blue sky, then closed to dump more rain. I knew I was running out of time, but rejoiced when I reached the end of the crumbly switchbacks, rounded another shoulder, and emerged into sunlight with the treetops of the canyon bottom only a couple hundred feet below me.
It’d taken me two hours and forty-five minutes to go 3-1/2 miles, even with most of that downhill. I could probably ascribe the slow pace to the weather – requiring frequent stops for changing outerwear – plus my cardio recovery. I figured my stops had so far amounted to close to 30 minutes.
It was a little frustrating to be so close to the bottom – I could hear the big creek roaring down there – but that descent had been brutal on my lower body and I knew I’d be sore later. And I would already end up making at least part of the drive home in the dark, something I really hate to do with the potential for wildlife on the roads.
The sunlight was soon replaced by more darkness, and at the foot of the crumbly switchbacks I was suddenly hit by a downpour that had me scrambling to dig out and pull on the already wet poncho. I’d dreaded the climb – over 1,100 vertical feet, most of it sidehilling on wet gravel – but it’s all part of hiking in wilderness, so I just switch off my feelings and take it in stages, trying to enjoy the Gothic drama of this steep, rocky landscape under a storm.
More than an hour later I reached the saddle, where the wind suddenly grabbed my poncho, and for a moment I felt like the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz was carrying me off to perdition. It was so bad, I briefly lost the trail on the other side, racing to get down out of the wind.
Once out of the wind, I stopped to roll up the poncho and replace it with my storm shell. I added the thermal cap, but my hands were wet and Raynaud’s syndrome was turning them white, so I had to rub them frantically to dry and warm them before donning the lightweight gloves. I definitely need to start packing for winter conditions.
My new Goretex boots were soaked, my canvas pants were soaked to the thighs, and it was only forward motion that kept me from shivering. Both knees were sore and I was getting some kind of cramp that made stepping down rock ledges painful, but the rain had finally abated, and the descent wasn’t as bad as I’d expected.
The big trucks were gone from the trailhead – they hadn’t used this trail, so I couldn’t imagine what else they’d been doing here. With stops, it had taken me five hours and forty minutes to go seven miles and 2,105 vertical feet.
Driving down out of the mountains on the narrow, partly one-lane winding road with its sheer drop-off, I faced some beautiful sunset skies in the west. The storm clearly covered our region, and fifteen miles out of town I hit another downpour which followed me home. Definitely not in the forecast!
At home the next day, I re-checked the official websites, and discovered their trail description had been changed in the past few days, showing the trail had been re-routed around washouts and cleared to the big creek.
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.
