Monday, August 28th, 2023
Monday, August 21st, 2023: Hikes, Holt, Mogollon Mountains, Southwest New Mexico.
My twice-weekly hiking routine had been disrupted since April, and the Southwest heat wave had mostly prevented me from hiking for a month and a half – the last serious hike was during a brief cool-off a month ago.
An old friend had taken her life last week, and no hike was going to overcome the melancholy, but the forecast showed the heat wave fading during the next couple of weeks. I re-checked the online trip reports for my old favorite crest hike on the west side, that had been blocked by a massive blowdown in March, and found one from a lady who’d hiked through there at the end of May, mentioning only a few trees down. So with no expectations, I decided to give it a try. It’s a challenging hike and I knew I’d lost a lot of conditioning, and depending on the weather, solar heating might be intense on the exposed crest. But the day was forecast to be windy – that might help.
As I approached the trailhead, I was glad to see a cloud bank over the mountains – wondering how long it would last?
Unsurprisingly, there were few entries in the trailhead log during the past two hot months, and the farthest anyone had gone was the spring at 4-1/2 miles. But one hiker thanked the Forest Service for trail work, which was encouraging.
And a few yards up the trail there was a new wooden sign, to replace the metal “Warning: Trail Not Maintained” sign that’s been there since the 2012 wildfire. This permanent-looking sign announced the trail is unmaintained past Camp Creek Saddle. That suggested two possibilities: first, that the eight miles to the saddle might actually be cleared now, and second, that the remaining twelve miles to the crest trail have been permanently abandoned.
I was excited about the first possibility. Despite being in poor shape, if the trail was clear I was determined to make it to the saddle, a 16-mile round trip with over 5,000′ of elevation gain. I would do it if even if it meant coming back in the dark.
The second possibility was depressing, since this is the last potentially maintainable link in the vast network that used to enable backpackers to traverse the crest of the range.
Unsurprisingly, again, the creek was dry when I reached the canyon bottom, but vegetation was lush in the old burn scar due to our wet winter. And even without running water, I encountered a painted redstart as soon as I left the burn scar and entered the riparian canopy.
Then, two miles into the hike where the blowdown had started, I found that the dozens of big logs across the trail had indeed been cut, probably in May after I called the ranger station to report it.
The work had been done by the equestrians, and I was grateful, but it still bothered me that they were using this to promote their own agenda, going so far as to brand one of the cut logs with their acronym.
Normally, at this time of year, there would be thunderstorms with rain and hail and lots of wildflowers and fungi. In this drought I found only a few flowers and no fresh fungi. Buy the wildlife seemed to be thriving – in rapid succession I came upon an Arizona/Sonoran Mountain Kingsnake, a whitetail deer buck, a Downy Woodpecker, and a rattlesnake.
Panting with effort as the grade got steeper, I made it to the bottom of the switchbacks and found that the big tree across the trail there had indeed been cut. But that’s where the equestrians’ trail maintenance had ended.
Quite a bit of new blowdown slowed me down on the switchbacks, and the wind increased as I trudged upward, exceeding 40 mph in more exposed sites. But clouds still drifted across the sun, and both the wind and the shade really helped. I even felt a chill when under a particularly dark cloud, but as soon as the sun returned it felt like the mid-80s again. The spring at 9,100 feet was still flowing, and I wondered if I would run out of water trying to reach the distant saddle. Nice to know fresh water was available here.
Finally I rounded the corner of the last long switchback and the crest was in sight. I hadn’t seen human tracks anywhere on this trail, and I figured I might be the only person to make it up here since last fall.
I crossed the 9,500′ saddle on the shoulder of the peak and headed down the trail on the back side, through the burn scar dense with regrowth of aspen and locust. The wind was coming from the south, and when I reached the first small stand of intact forest a big limb snapped off and fell a couple yards to my right. I stopped, then figured I’d be safer in the midst of the forest, so I kept going. But then another limb snapped off and fell a few yards to my left. I was pretty sure the wind here was exceeding 50 mph, so I was paying a lot of attention to the canopy.
As usual, the trail down the back side, leading to a long ridge and eventually Camp Creek Saddle, was an obstacle course of thorny locust and blowdown. Virtually no trail work has been done here for at least five years. The burn was patchy, and small stands of alpine mixed-conifer forest alternate with jungles of regrowth. I’d fought my way to the distant saddle almost exactly two years ago, but I knew I wasn’t up for that today. I was just trying to make it to a tiny saddle, the first low point in the ridge, where there was a stand of forest on the south side where I could stop and rest.
But about halfway down I came upon a pile of really fresh bear scat, and started making a lot more noise. Then I saw the first hawk, circling around the little peak above my destination saddle, and heard it screech. Soon it was joined by another, and they poised together in the face of the wind and were joined by a third. The wind was fierce but they kept trying to hold a formation together, right over my head. They stuck around for ten or fifteen minutes before drifting away together.
I had a nice rest in the shade of the forest, while staying vigilant on the wind in the canopy. I was deep enough I felt somewhat protected. I also noticed a pine that wasn’t ponderosa – you have to be really focused to tell the difference, and it’s common to just assume the only conifers in this habitat are ponderosa and doug fir.
Finally I made my back up through the jungle, to the shoulder of the high peak where I climbed to the little rocky overlook. I knew the wind would be at its worst here, but I always love the view, over the heart of the range on the east and the open country to the west.
When I finally reached the long switchbacks down from the crest and got some relief from the wind, I was lucky to encounter a solitary swallowtail butterfly. And I stopped to examine a small pine that had blown down across the trail recently enough that some needles were green. I figured it was the same species as the trees I’d seen on the crest – probably a Southwestern White Pine, which must be fairly common here if you know to look for them.
Steller’s jays had been harrassing me all day, but partway down the trail in the canyon bottom I sensed something rising in the corner of my eye, and noticed a shadowy form settling on a low branch, only 30-40 feet away. It was an owl! A small one, only about 12-14 inches head to tail, but when I got home and looked it up, I found it was almost certainly a rare Mexican Spotted Owl, probably a young one. It just sat there and watched me, obviously curious, until I finally had to go.
Shortly after that, I heard a screech overhead, and the hawks returned, swooping low through the canopy this time. I’ve seen young migrating eagles behaving like this, traveling in flocks and showing off their acrobatic skills. What a day for wildlife! I began to wonder if the heat wave and corresponding absence of humans has allowed wildlife to flourish more in these habitats. Despite the displacement of indigenous peoples, wilderness designation is valuable if only to keep us civilized people under control – we just can’t be trusted not to destroy nature.
Monday, August 28th, 2023: Chiricahuas, Hikes, South Fork, Southeast Arizona.
I’d been waiting all summer for the weather to cool off enough so I could hike the canyon trail over in Arizona that had finally been cleared. According to the forecast, it still wouldn’t be cool enough, but we’d been having monsoon weather for past week, and I was hoping I’d have cloud cover, and possibly even rain, in the afternoon, to cool things off.
Over the past four years, I’ve been exploring every trail that climbs from the accessible northeast basin of the range, through the wilderness area to the 9,000 foot crest. Every trail, that is, except this one – so this was now my holy grail.
I’d actually tried it a year and a half ago, and found the final 1.3 mile stretch seriously impassable. But a professional trail crew had finally cleared it this year – twelve years after the 2011 wildfire.
Not only would this complete my exploration of the northern canyons, but it would be the longest hike I’d ever done in this range. What limits me is the distance from home – the long drive means less hours available to hike. So today I would leave early.
About thirty miles south of town, a pronghorn buck crossed the highway in front of me. Hadn’t seen one for a few years – I took it as a good omen.
Despite the early start, air temperature was already in the 80s when I reached the 5,240 foot trailhead at 8:30 am. And despite our summer-long drought, and the fact that the creek started out bone-dry, I was soaked with sweat and swarmed by flies within the first mile. These northern canyons hold moisture – from our wet winter and a few rains in June – and unlike in our canyons back home, I found an impressive display of wildflowers and pollinators.
One or more bears had preceded me on the trail this morning, leaving scat all the way up. The first stretch is a steady four-mile ramble at a shallow grade, under red cliffs and spires, through mostly deciduous riparian forest featuring sycamore, cypress, ponderosa pine, maple, walnut, and oak. The creek was running intermittently, but often choked with algae. I saw no human tracks anywhere – presumably the heat’s been keeping hikers away.
There’s supposed to be an apple tree on the trail about three miles in, but I hadn’t found it before and didn’t find it this time either. The heat combined with humidity were really exhausting and discouraging.
Climbing less than a thousand feet in four miles, I reached the junction where the big side canyon comes in from the west. I usually see that canyon from above, where it seems vast, but the junction here is inconspicuous. Beyond here, the trail becomes very rocky and very steep, climbing continuously at an average grade of 21% for the next three miles. But it also leaves the lower, primarily deciduous forest and enters dense mixed-conifer forest that provides more shade. Scattered clouds were forming so I was hopeful for cooling temps.
But it was so muggy, even occasional shade failed to provide relief. To compensate, I had the beautiful forest, the rock formations, the flowers and the pollinators.
Finally, after a mile and a half, I reached the end of the forest and the edge of the burn scar. The steep grade and rocky trail had taken much longer than expected, and I hated to think I might fail to reach the crest.
I had to at least confirm that the upper trail was accessible. On my previous attempt, I’d gotten lost in a deeply eroded ravine choked with deadfall and regrowth. The ravine remained a nasty place, but big cairns on each side showed where to cross, and clear tread continued on the opposite side.
This restored trail had already been colonized by annuals, responding to moisture that remained in the soil from last winter. But I quickly learned to just ignore the annuals, striding through them as if they didn’t exist. I could see the narrow drainage above this burn scar, where a band of forest had escaped the fire. That was my next destination – I’d failed to bring a map, but assumed it led straight to the crest.
Cloud cover was now almost complete, and the air temperature was dropping, but I kept sweating just as hard. I was relieved to reach the intact forest, only to discover it led to upper slopes whose forest had been completely stripped by fire. The ground here was white gravel, and as far as the eye can see, it was blanketed with ferns and thorny locust, in some places shoulder-high. The trail showed as only a vague disturbance in the dense, virulent-green vegetation.
In this treeless landscape, that 21% grade felt Sisyphean. From my perspective, I couldn’t tell how near I was to the end – I assumed much of what I was looking at above were false peaks. I was pushing my way through waist-high annuals, climbing a seemingly endless series of long switchbacks toward the ever-darkening sky, stopping often to catch my breath.
But here in this alpine burn scar where you could almost touch the clouds, wildflowers were lush and pollinators were working as hard as ever – I even saw hummingbirds.
Finally I was high enough for a view east, but wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Then I reached a switchback that appeared to be approaching a saddle. My clothes were drenched with sweat and my whole body ached, but I’d reached the crest!
It had taken me 5-1/2 hours to go seven miles, climbing almost 4,000 feet, in tropical humidity. I’d felt a few sprinkles on the last switchback, but that would be it for the day. I was rewarded with a view into a new watershed, but this barren saddle wasn’t a place to linger. And I had to make much better time on the way back, to reach the cafe, burrito and beer before 6 pm closing.
A huge amount of work had gone into clearing and restoring the upper part of this trail through the burn scar, but as far as I could tell, no hiker had taken advantage of it in four months. Yes, we’d been in a heat wave – presumably people would start showing up in the fall. These trails to the crest form a network for backpackers, so hikers can now use this as the beginning or end of a multi-day trek along the crest. But considering the amount of regrowth already obscuring the route in a drought, a wet summer would quickly undo a lot of that trail work.
I expected to be cooler on the descent, but just the effort of moving downhill kept me damp. I’d allocated nine hours for the entire hike, and I thought that would leave me plenty of time, so I made plenty of stops, especially enjoying the sight of a couple of beautiful Englemann spruce trees, isolated here in one of their southernmost habitats.
I’d been drinking plenty of water and adding electrolyte supplement, but in the next two miles the leg cramps hit, eventually paralyzing me. I rested, I stretched, I pushed through them, but they took a half hour to subside. And air temperature was rising as I descended.
Suddenly I noticed three apples on the ground beside the trail. Then I looked up – the famous apple tree was right next to me! I never would’ve noticed it if I hadn’t seen the apples on the ground first.
Finally, within the last two miles, I took off my shirt and rinsed both it and my hat in the stream. It didn’t stop me from sweating but it felt better having a shirt soaked with creek water instead of sweat! And I drank the last of my four liters of water with only a mile to go – no need to guess where all that water had gone. I arrived at the vehicle with just enough time to change clothes and drive to the cafe right before closing.
