Monday, October 23rd, 2023
Valley at the End of the World
Monday, October 2nd, 2023: 2023 Trips, Mogollon Rim, Regions, Road Trips.
There’s a large, mountainous area near here that I drive past regularly, on our loneliest regional highway, on long trips to other places – yet for seventeen years it’s remained a mystery.
The area encompasses 1,200 square miles, all within national forests, and is so rugged that it contains virtually no level ground. I knew it has a named mountain range, but from outside, it’s impossible to distinguish that from other, better known mountains. Landforms intrigue me and it really rankled that I couldn’t figure out the topography of this region.
From maps, I could see it contains a river, but the canyon or valley of that river can’t be seen from outside and would take hours to reach on dirt roads. The same maps show a network of hiking trails crisscrossing most of the area, and I’d tried two of those trails on the far east side closest to my home. One was abandoned and lined with sharp rocks, the other was abandoned and heavily used by cattle.
I’d avoided exploring this area because, in addition to being overrun with cattle, I’d assumed most of it was below 8,000 feet elevation and hence less interesting than the surrounding higher mountains. But this Sunday I needed to give my problem foot a rest, and the weather was forecast to be mild, so I decided to explore the unknown land by vehicle.
The unknown land can only be reached by vehicle from the north or east, on one of four dirt roads that are rocky and require high clearance. The road nearest to home enters from the east, winding and climbing up and down through tall, parklike ponderosa forest at an average elevation of 6,500 feet. It took me a half hour to go six miles, where I reached the first milestone, a trailhead and campground. Whereas on my previous short forays on this road, I’d found every turnout occupied by a huge RV trailer, today the whole area was unoccupied.
When I stepped out of the vehicle at the trailhead, the wind almost blew me over, and I had to close the windows to keep blowing dust out. We hadn’t had wind like this since last spring – the tops of the pines were thrashing and roaring like a freight train.
In contrast with trails in my well-publicized local mountains, where a majority of visitors come from places like New York and California, the vast majority of the visitors listed on this trailhead log were from Arizona and New Mexico. I’d gotten a late start and ate a typical hiking lunch, sitting on a log in the shade. Apart from the wind, the temperature was perfect, and forecast to be mild all day.
As I drove away, a Forest Service ranger arrived in a maintenance vehicle – the only other vehicle I met on that road all day.
My next destination was a cliff dwelling which is marked, surprisingly, on Google Maps, another six miles up the road. Past the forested campground, the road climbed, and climbed, and climbed, becoming rockier and rockier, emerging from the ponderosa forest onto steep slopes dotted with shrubs and junipers, with fortress-like bluffs of volcanic conglomerate looming high above. I got a panoramic view of lower ridges and canyons to the south, and I kept scanning the cliffs above, seeing many caves but no cliff dwellings. So I zoomed in and took photos, hoping to spot the cliff dwellings later, when I had a chance to blow up the photos at home. Guess I should pack field glasses in my vehicle!
The road topped out on a knife-edge saddle with the most spectacular views I’ve seen from any road in this region. Above was the stone rampart, on the west was the deep canyon of the next watershed, and beyond the lower country in the southeast rose my familiar home mountains. I was forming my first mental map of this unknown land, and unexpectedly, I was impressed.
Past the saddle, the road wound down into the next watershed, becoming rockier and slower. It entered more pine forest, crossed the head of the new canyon, and climbed again onto a forested plateau between mountains on the north and south. Here I crossed the state line, met one of the dirt roads coming in from the north, and reached a second trailhead. The log at this one recorded mostly visitors from Phoenix or Tucson – a five-and-a-half hour drive away. My friends tend to dismiss Phoenix as a hotbed of ecological abuse, but I’ve learned that the sprawling, water-wasting megalopolis is actually full of nature-loving outdoor enthusiasts, with fantastic landscapes like the Superstition Mountains nearby. How had they found out about this remote, poorly-publicized area far to their east?
At the western end of the plateau I began my descent into the remote valley of the obscure river. The road became really vertiginous, with a dropoff of hundreds of feet, until I eventually reached a precarious wide spot to pull over and study the view. This was the hidden valley I’d wondered about for years!
I was surprised to spot isolated homes and ranches scattered throughout the darkly forested landscape, but I couldn’t see a floodplain – it seemed to be all steep ridges and deep canyons, and on the far side, the 9,000 foot rim of the alpine plateau I knew and loved from many previous trips. This valley had remained hidden from that high plateau.
At the bottom, the road passed a very funky compound, strewn with rundown buildings and dusty vehicles, and immediately forded the shallow river. Then on the other side sprawled a big, well-tended pasture with the kind of modern, upscale ranchhouse you see throughout rural Arizona.
The road wound down the valley, crossing and re-crossing the river, beneath a lush canopy bordered by sheer, dark volcanic cliffs. Homes and ranches were sparse, separated by long stretches of dense riparian forest, and the construction varied between traditional working ranches, funky weathered cabins, and what appeared to be the occasional modest vacation home. Most rural settlements in Arizona are very affluent compared to New Mexico – I hadn’t seen this kind of diversity elsewhere. The fact that the valley is populated at all was an unexpected revelation.
The river road dead-ends about fifteen miles downstream. I drove most of the way, checking out remote trailheads I’d always wondered about. Most of them seem to be used by equestrians, many of which are probably hunters living in towns a few hours away.
The wind was still roaring, and when the road occasionally climbed high above the river I could see it sweeping in waves across the billowing canopy of narrowleaf cottonwoods. Cumulus clouds were forming and I was wondering if I’d have to drive that marginal dirt road in the rain later. I also wondered where these people do their shopping. After checking the map I discovered the nearest gas is over an hour away, on another of these slow, rocky, high-clearance dirt roads. The nearest small town, with shopping, is an hour and a half. And this river must flood regularly, stranding residents from each other and the outside world for days, maybe even weeks at a time in a wet year.
I turned back north when the road became gnarlier, and pulled off at one of the trailheads I’d long wanted to explore. The trail started steep – bad for my foot – and was badly eroded, lined with sharp rocks, and used only by equestrians, so it was also deeply pitted. I only went about a half mile, far enough to climb several hundred feet above the river, to a saddle with partial views east and south.
I’d hoped to explore the upper valley, but my time was running out. I was also curious about the road that accesses the valley from the northeast, the road I’d passed up on the plateau. In fifteen miles, it climbs over the shoulder of a 9,000 foot peak and might offer more spectacular views. The extra distance meant I probably wouldn’t get home until after 7 pm.
I’d passed a total of four vehicles in the valley, but there was still no one on the upper roads, despite it being a weekend. The northeast road climbed gently through parklike ponderosa forest, then steeply up a ridge. I could tell there was an amazing view south, but only found one small break in the trees. Then the road turned down again into a hidden interior valley, and finally began climbing a long, narrow canyon that I believed led towards the high peak.
The habitat in this canyon was completely different – moist, and lined with a pure, dense stand of tall firs, with seedlings bordering the road. The wind was still roaring overhead, and I came to a fallen tree blocking the road. Why hadn’t I thought of this – blithely driving through forest in high wind?
Only six inches in diameter, the tree turned out to be easy to swivel to the side. But then the road entered a burn scar, and I came to tree after tree I had to move off the road. When would I reach one I couldn’t move?
That happened shortly afterward. A tree had fallen from a high bank so that it was wedged in place across the road. I couldn’t budge it by hand, and what if an even bigger one lay beyond? I had to turn back, and retrace my morning’s path on the slow eastern road.
Just before reaching the east-west road, I encountered a 4wd flatbed truck on big tires, with two guys in the cab. I waved them down and warned them about the fallen tree, but they were only going a short ways up the road and weren’t worried. After talking to them, I remembered I had heavy duty nylon straps in the back and might’ve been able to pull the fallen tree out of the way with my vehicle. Or not – there was still the likelihood of more, and the time wasted doing road work instead of driving home.
Of course, with the wind, the clouds, and the setting sun, the landscape just kept getting more beautiful. That eastern road into the valley has to be the most beautiful road in this entire region. In the words of the Governator, I’ll be back.
In the end, it took me six hours to drive 71 miles on those dirt roads, for an average of 12 mph. I ended up driving a total of nine and a half hours and got home in the dark exhausted, starving, and in pain.
If you wanted to escape civilization, that hidden valley might be your best option in the American Southwest. No, it’s not wilderness, and you’d have a motley collection of neighbors. But there’s plenty of water for living and gardening, wild birds and other game love riparian corridors like that, and the bad roads and flooding keep out the riffraff. And the whole area is far more spectacular than I’d ever imagined – truly a hidden gem.
Monday, October 9th, 2023: Hikes, Mogollon Mountains, Ring, Southwest New Mexico.
I’d come up with a theory that the pain in the outside of my foot was due to a combination of weak toes and a long-term shift of weight from the ball of my foot to the outside. Both were habits adopted to protect the ball of my foot from chronic inflammation – along with wearing stiff-soled hiking boots. So for this Sunday’s hike I wanted a fairly easy trail to practice correcting my gait.
All the trails on the fringes of our wilderness are either in bad shape or involve steep climbs, so I decided to drive up to the heart of the mountains and take a ridge trail that runs westward 14 miles, ultimately connecting with the major west-side creek I hiked eastward to a couple weeks ago. Below this east-west ridge lies a narrow canyon in which a creek drains eastward, and the map shows a connector trail from the ridge down to the creek, that I could use to make a loop hike of about 14 miles round-trip.
I knew from a previous partial hike on this trail that the grades are gentle, and the ridge is only 400 feet above the canyon, so it shouldn’t be too hard on my foot. Even better, the trail had been reported cleared last year, and I didn’t remember it being very rocky.
The morning was chilly, but the sky only showed a few distant filaments of cloud and the high was forecast to be in the low 70s. Trails in this area are popular with tourists, and there were couple of horse trailers, a pickup, and a school bus from Colorado parked around the trailhead. I found it fairly easy to concentrate on my gait, and the climb to the ridgetop warmed me up. It’s 3-1/2 miles to the first junction, where I’d turned south on my past visit. This ridge offers long views to the north and east, but nothing particularly spectacular. It’s just nice being on a ridge, having views to both sides, and despite the “mindful walking”, I made good time.
Past the junction I entered unfamiliar ground. Despite being an easy trail, it maintained interest by crossing a series of knife-edge saddles with yawning views, then traversing mostly bare slopes consisting of white conglomerate terraces. Most of the canyons in this area are lined with bluffs of white conglomerate, sometimes containing caves where prehistoric people built modest cliff dwellings.
The habitat alternated between scrub, pinyon-juniper-oak woodland, and open ponderosa pine forest. But the ridgetop trail was mostly exposed, and the air was mostly still. Solar radiation made it feel like the 80s.
I was still moving at a good pace, and based on the time it took me to reach the first junction, I started watching for the connector trail that drops into the canyon on my left. But I kept going, half hour by half hour segment, and never saw any sign of another trail.
From the lower part of the ridge, the view to the northeast had been the main attraction. But now, a series of peaks to the southwest formed my horizon, getting closer and closer across the canyon of the creek below. Whereas most of the ridgetop is burn scar, the canyon and slopes on my left were darkly forested with ponderosa pine.
Trudging onward, focusing relentlessly on my gait, I began to realize I’d somehow missed the connector trail. No problem – I’d just turn back when half my time was gone. But my foot was getting tired and I wanted to stop somewhere where there was a nice shady spot to rest. Those were few and far between on this exposed ridgetop.
Eventually I came to a small clearing with a spreading juniper, took off my boots and relaxed for a while in the shade. I figured I’d gone between 7 and 8 miles.
On the way back, I looked more closely for the connector trail, and never saw the slightest sign of it. In fact, it doesn’t exist on Forest Service maps – it probably ended up on my mapping platform because some dude bushwhacked down there once, capturing his route on GPS.
Cumulus clouds had been building on the northwest horizon, forming a dark mass that gradually loomed over me. Thunder was booming almost continuously up in the clouds, but I couldn’t see any lightning yet. I wasn’t looking forward to hiking this exposed ridge in a storm.
First I felt a few drops, and then it began to fall in earnest, so I pulled on my poncho and speeded up. Both feet were hurting, and I had a cramp in my left hip that was making my whole leg numb.
I walked in rain for a half hour, thunder rolling overhead, as the storm spread to cover the entire visible landscape. When the rain moved off, I could see lightning far in the east, but thunder still boomed overhead. The trail becomes even more exposed at the east end of the ridge, where I began to feel really vulnerable. I couldn’t remember ever hurting this much at the end of a hike. But my theory had worked – there was no more pain on the outside of my foot. And on the final descent to the trailhead, the sun came out and the colors were glorious.
It’s a long, difficult drive home through the mountains, where I faced sporadic rain and switched into 4wd to keep from sliding off a precipice. Town was dry, but within a block of home the heavens opened up and we got a brief but heavy downpour.
Monday, October 16th, 2023: 2023 Trips, Road Trips.
The Hotel
I had to make a sudden, unplanned three-hour drive to Tucson for a medical exam. It took me a while to get ready, so I decided to stay overnight and hit the medical center the next morning.
Tucson is one of my long-time waystations. Its low-rise sprawl spans the huge basin below the 9,000 foot Santa Catalina mountains. I’ve visited most parts of that sprawl, from the airport in the far south (my favorite in the U.S.), to a friend’s house on Sabino Creek in the far east, to REI and Whole Foods in the far northwest, to the Sonoran Desert Museum (actually a zoo) just west of the city. My first-ever visit, more than 20 years ago, was downtown, to hipster hangout Hotel Congress. I stayed there twice, danced at the nightclub, and ate at the cafe dozens of times, beginning in 2006, as I commuted from New Mexico to San Diego on my longest-lasting tech industry contract.
So I know the city pretty well and have a few favorite places. One of those is the Reid Park DoubleTree hotel. I stayed there first in 2008, fifteen years ago. Reid Park, about four miles east of downtown, is dominated by a golf course, and the hotel is an affordable midscale resort and conference center. Many people say it’s in the middle of nowhere, but I routinely shop in that area, and there’s a wide variety of restaurants nearby. Like every Western city, Tucson has the full spectrum from cheap motels to trendy boutique hotels and luxury resorts. I’ve tried all extremes, but prefer the comfortable, unpretentious DoubleTree.
I last stayed there in 2018, and the place seems to be struggling in the wake of COVID. Their low occupancy rates can no longer sustain a restaurant – they serve breakfast, and a lobby bar features a limited food menu. But the staff is still friendly, the grounds are still clean, and the rooms are still being regularly renovated. I’ve stayed in the tower before, with a great view of the mountains, but this time I got a cheaper courtyard room – with a private patio shaded by orange trees. At the lobby bar, I enjoyed my favorite local IPA and one of the best burgers of my life.
The Hospital
This was a bizarre, disorienting trip in which I drove three hours to check into a big-city hospital Emergency Department for tests I couldn’t get at home, tests which would otherwise require months of waiting for an appointment. After last year’s nightmare illness, I dreaded being inside a hospital again, and was half hoping they’d turn me away.
But the staff accepted my situation and went right to work. I saw one doctor after another, and the second said they would keep me overnight – something I was ready for but not happy about. Then I waited four hours for an MRI, had a complete neurological exam, and was discharged – they’d found nothing wrong – after a total of eight hours in the maze-like bowels of the hospital.
I booked another night in another DoubleTree courtyard room, enjoyed a salad in the bar, and early to bed.
The Eclipse
Wanting to at least do something fun in the city before heading home, I found the nearby U of A was hosting an eclipse event. Visitors were advised to park in the Cherry Street garage, which I found on Google Maps. I drove through campus on Cherry Street, less than ten minutes before the maximum, but the garage didn’t seem to exist, a big crowd was swarming over the parklike intersection, and there was no street parking.
At the same time, my Native American friend was urgently trying to reach me, and I couldn’t keep dismissing his calls. So I drove off campus and found a shaded spot in front of a house where two women were putting up Halloween decorations. Before calling, I turned my notebook into an eclipse viewer, punching a hole in a page with my ballpoint pen, held it out my car window, and saw the crescent – Tucson was getting the 80% version.
The Museum
After the call, it was almost time for the art museum to open. I’m a fan of regional art museums. In keeping with Latin culture, Tucson’s modest museum is built as an inward-facing courtyard, blank on the outside, incorporating historic adobe buildings along one side. Their permanent collection is poor, so temporary exhibitions are the draw. A sort of smaller, inverted, rectilinear Guggenheim, the building starts at street level and spirals underground.
I spent two hours there, longer than ever before, ending on the easily-overlooked upper floor, which hides, like an afterthought, a disappointing selection of modern art. There I found an Alexander Calder print featuring a spiral. He’d made a belt buckle with a silver version of that same spiral, and in high school, as a friend of the family, I made a belt for it.
Finding my way out, I hoped to eat at the busy cafe. But I was starving and it was all light fare.
The Restaurant
A few blocks up the street is a Mexican dinner house I’d tried before. When I travel from my small town to the big city, I have no interest in sushi, Thai, or any of the other exotic cuisines city people favor. Mexican food at home is so limited, all I’m interested in is better Mexican food.
The hostess put me in the far corner at the window, which was fine with me. But right next to me was an enclosed stone staircase leading to a dark cellar, and my waiter, a young gay man with bleached hair, said if the goblin bothered me, I should just toss it some chips.
Monday, October 16th, 2023: Hikes, Mogollon Mountains, Sapillo, Southwest New Mexico.
The medical scare and trip to Tucson had screwed up this week’s schedule. I probably should’ve skipped my Sunday hike, but it felt like the only thing I could salvage to feel good about the week.
But I got up late, so I would have to find a shorter trail close to town. The one I picked is almost 12 miles out-and-back, starting from a long dirt road and descending over 2,000 feet into the canyon of one of our biggest creeks, just before the mouth where it joins the river. I prefer to start out climbing and finish by descending, but I figured it was “only 2,000 feet” – I’m used to twice that in my Sunday hikes.
The dirt road begins 18 miles north of town, about a 40 minute drive on the highway. I’d never explored it before, and was mildly surprised to find it pretty damn rugged, with a lot of exposed bedrock and steep, winding grades, so that it took me another 40 minutes to go another 7 miles. The long 8,600 foot high ridge that I’ve hiked many times loomed above on my left – this road skirts its steep north slope – and I got a new view of the burn scars from the 2020 wildfire.
Rounding a rocky bend into a side gully, I surprised a small hawk which had just caught a squirrel. Struggling to take off with its heavy prey, it literally dragged the squirrel through the dirt until it reached the dropoff on the other side and could soar across the gully into the lower forest.
I didn’t meet any humans on the road, but there was a pickup with extended ramp, and a detached flatbed trailer, parked at the trailhead. There was also a corral and lots of cowshit, all more than a week old.
The trail starts in ponderosa forest, down a shallow canyon next to a barbed-wire fence. I saw only one human footprint, going down; the other recent visitors had been on horseback, weeks or months ago.
The fence soon veered off, and although the creek was dry, lush vegetation and rocky bluffs made the canyon pretty. I hadn’t studied the map in detail and was surprised when, after a mile and a half, the trail began climbing away on the west slope. And I was really disappointed to meet my nemesis, the dreaded volcanic cobbles. My feet were not looking forward to this.
All I could think of, picking my way carefully over those rocks, was that I was adding to the elevation I’d have to regain on the way back. But as usual, I kept going, and was finally surprised to reach a dirt forest road that didn’t show up on my map. The trail apparently continued on the road.
And the road ran, fairly level, for a mile and a quarter, out a finger of ridge in a stark corridor that had been logged, partly as a firebreak and partly by woodcutters. Near the end, I heard chopping, and encountered a guy swinging an axe, splitting logs that had been cut into short sections by the Feds. “Free wood!” he enthused. His truck was nowhere to be seen so I assumed he was expecting a ride later.
On the positive side, I got occasional glimpses of the big canyons ahead. And finally the road ended at the wilderness boundary, and I faced the descent.
The trail into the big canyon started steep and even rockier than before. I immediately realized I should give up and turn back. But then I saw somebody coming up, in bright colors. It was a young through-hiker, finishing the national trail in reverse.
I’d read somewhere, recently, that the latest fad in the through-hiking subculture is to compete for the most outlandish outfit, but this was the first time I’d seen it in person. Forget the sleek, expensive space-age creations from REI – this kid could’ve just stepped out of a flea-market circus, his broad floppy hat ringed with big rainbow-colored fake flowers, and below that a garish striped shirt and mismatched paisley pants. Imagine tramping alone through thousands of miles of federal wilderness and national forest, camping along remote streams and rivers, just waiting for that moment when you can impress another young hiker – hopefully the opposite sex – with your bizarre costume!
I asked how far he’d come today, and he said about twelve miles – and he’d hated to leave the river, with little or no water between here and town. I realized the mountain biker I’d met cutting logs on the real national trail, earlier this year, had been right. No through hiker uses the official trail anymore, when they can follow the river instead.
We talked awhile, but if I was going to do this I needed to get going. He said “Enjoy the views!” which I did find encouraging. I wondered how much water he was carrying, and how far he would get tonight. We were 17 miles from the highway, on the other side of the high ridge, with another 12 miles from there to town.
The views did get better, but the upper part of the trail was a nightmare of rocks. My masochistic side took over – I’d come this far, I had to get somewhere nice before turning back. Down and down I went into the big canyon, and much of the trail was exposed, on a still day with solar heating.
I knew exactly where I was headed, because I’d hiked to the mouth of this canyon last year, along the opposite slope. That had been a much more spectacular hike because the opposite slope mostly consists of grassy meadows tended prehistorically by Native Americans, yielding views both long and deep, into the narrow, sycamore-lined canyon.
Still, it’s always exciting to hike deep into backcountry and encounter a site you’ve reached before, on an equally long trek through completely different terrain.
This is the driest time I’ve ever experienced in this region, and the creek was much lower, but still running. I was already in a lot of pain from the descent – I tried sitting on a log for a while, but knew I needed to get going. When planning the day, I’d ignored how much longer it would take to ascend than to descend. I would probably end the hike in the dark, starving and barely able to walk.
On the ascent, I discovered that walking too fast on the descent had given me shin splints and a sore knee. But I had to keep going, and I knew the hardest part was waiting near the top. I just shut down my mind and kept trudging, slipping and stubbing and stumbling among the rocks.
I made it up, and the hot sun was getting mercifully low as I paced out that interminable woodcutter road. The outlandish through-hiker’s footprints disappeared – he’d apparently bummed a ride with the woodcutter!
The trail down into the side canyon was even harder than I’d remembered, and the sun was setting by the time I reached the bottom. My entire lower body was on fire, but I knew the climb up this canyon to the trailhead would be easier. Dusk was beginning when I reached the vehicle – and the pickup and trailer were gone, probably belonging to the woodcutter and a partner.
I drove the 40 minutes back out the dirt road in the dusk. About halfway, I suddenly noticed a big bull elk standing on the bank just above the road, like a ghost.
Monday, October 23rd, 2023: Chiricahuas, Hikes, Silver, Southeast Arizona.
I started this Sunday with a conflict between need and desire. I needed to go easier on my problem foot, but I desired to see some fall color, which would most likely occur at higher elevation – entailing lot of climbing. None of my options were good, so my departure was delayed 90 minutes while I tried to make up my mind. Fortunately, the hike I settled on was in Arizona, where I would get an hour back crossing the state line. And although it involves a strenuous climb, it’s shorter than my usual Sunday hikes. I told myself I could take it slow to protect my foot.
The sky was clear, and the high was forecast to be in the mid-80s at the bottom. It was in the 70s when I set out, but it already felt like the 80s in the sun, and the first mile is exposed, as you climb above the northeast valley. The only tracks I saw were from the small herd of equines that grazes the lower slope, which surprised me, since this is the most popular trail in the area and fall is peak hiking season.
This trail, which I’ve hiked four times before, ascends the northeast and north slopes of a massif that stands alone surrounded by valleys, which are themselves surrounded by higher ridges. The top is essentially a lookout post for the entire northeast part of the mountain range, and in the past, a fire lookout was built and used up there. It’s a pretty hike with a lot of exposed rock and dramatic transitions between habitats.
Finally, as I left the foothills to traverse the northeast slope of the mountain, I got a little intermittent breeze and my mood improved.
After climbing over 1,200 vertical feet, you turn a corner away from the northeast valley and into a big ravine that runs down between the twin peaks of the mountain. From here you view the northwest skyline of the range. And here I found my fall color, tucked into a corner of the steep ravine. You can also see your destination from here, high above to the southwest.
Long traverses and many switchbacks take you up into the cleft of the ravine, where you pass through a small stand of firs. The outer slopes are lined with oaks and pinyon pine, but these firs survive in the narrow ravine that channels cool air to lower elevations.
Past the ravine you traverse higher up the north slope until you enter the small fir forest that clings to the steep north slope of the peak, which tops out just over 8,000 feet. There, the trail passes behind towers of stone and begins a series of ten switchbacks that take you to the crest. I always find this stretch challenging, regardless of my conditioning.
The summit ridge is like a knife edge, making for a dramatic climax to all those switchbacks. The big basin south of this mountain is suddenly laid out for you. And at the west end of the ridge are the vertiginous stairs that lead to the abandoned foundation of the lookout.
The weather was perfect up there. I really hated to leave, and procrastinated as much as I could. Interestingly, the summit register showed a lot of visitors, even during the hottest days of our summer heat wave, up until ten days ago. Despite being perfect weather, this was the first time I’d made this climb without running into other people.
On the descent, just as I left the fir forest something small and dark flitted out of the low grass and annuals on the slope next to the trail – I first thought it was a butterfly. But it dove into a clump of bunchgrass, and kept hopping about, clinging for less than a second to the dead stalk of an annual then hopping to the ground. And so forth. I was some kind of tiny bird, barely bigger than a hummingbird, keeping within less than a foot of the ground, moving so often I couldn’t focus the camera on it. I stood there trying to snap pictures as it hopped to and fro only four or five feet away, completely ignoring me.
After descending the other three series of switchbacks and traversing out of the steep ravine, I found myself back in the northeast valley, with the sun casting long shadows. Here, I’m always dazzled by the colors of dying agaves.
At the base of the foothills, nearing the trailhead, I came upon the horses and mules. My foot was sore, but not as bad as on other hikes since I started changing my gait. I sure wish my podiatrist hadn’t retired!
