Sunday, August 10th, 2025
Sunday, August 10th, 2025: 2025 Trips, Nature, Plants, Regions, Road Trips, Sky Islands.
Our heat wave was forecast to taper off in a few days, with the monsoon clouds returning. And doc says I can start doing short hikes, also in a few days.
But meanwhile, I needed a Sunday road trip, and the area that intrigued me the most is low elevation and was likely to be pushing 100 degrees.
I studied the maps over and over, and finally realized that at the west end of that area, there’s a 6,500 foot peak with a road traversing it. I’d never considered exploring it because the top is covered with communications towers, and I hate towers on mountaintops. But it’s also surrounded by spectacular desert terrain and other mountains and buttes with colorful rocks, and the vegetation around there is a delightful mix of Sonoran and Mojave genera, so why not give it a shot?
After crossing the mountains south of town, I discovered the vast southern plains were blanketed with a mysterious, low-lying haze. It wasn’t windy, so I wondered if it might be humidity.
Then when I turned north, I was surprised to see some monsoon activity far ahead. I drove through the Mormon farming village, crossed our iconic river (muddy and barely visible amid its broad, dense canopy), and enjoyed an interval of rain before reaching the alluvial mesas and the turnoff for the “backcountry byway”.
Backcountry byways are dirt and gravel roads graded and maintained for recreation on BLM land. The map shows that this one crosses the iconic river, way the hell in the middle of nowhere as it makes its big bend west, so that was something else to look forward to.
The monsoon clouds spreading from the north were intermittently cooling off the air, enhancing the landscape, and making photography a challenge in their shadows. I had a great view of the mountain with the towers, which I’d never identified before.
After less than a mile on the byway, I pulled over to deflate my tires. Regular cars use this road, but regular cars have soft suspensions.
At the river, I could hear folks making noise down in the picnic area, but couldn’t see them for the trees. Despite the humongous copper mine to the north, this landscape is pretty miraculous, with a legendary river hidden in a narrow canyon in the midst of harsh and colorful desert.
Past the river, the road gets rougher and cuts back into a long valley toward the foot of the mountain. I came upon a big late-model pickup driving less than 10 mph on a straight, wide, recently-graded stretch. I followed them for almost a mile as they continued to drive in the middle of the road, blocking me. Finally we came to a wide enough spot I could squeeze past them.
And at the head of the valley, the road gets narrower and begins climbing the shoulder of a long outlying ridge.
When the road crested the shoulder, I stopped to check my map, and discovered that the road to the summit starts here. Communications tower access roads are notoriously poorly maintained, and I had to shift into low range 4wd just to get up the turnoff.
This road, accessing the summit from the northwest, climbs over a thousand feet in two miles, so the views northeast are pretty spectacular. But it’s also very narrow, rocky, and steep, so I had to pay close attention. There are no wide spots, so I kept wondering what I would do if I encountered another vehicle.
I considered that unlikely, but just as I came to the only wide spot before the crest, I saw a side-by-side heading down toward me. What are the chances? And what would we have done if we’d encountered each other a few minutes earlier or later?
Fortunately, they said there was no one behind them.
When I reached the crest, I got a view to the southwest. But the road became even rougher. I began to realize this was probably the gnarliest road I’d ever driven – but after driving that road to the crest of our eastern range a couple weeks ago, I was fairly calm. Guess I’m getting used to this.
I stopped in the saddle below the summit, at nearly 6,400 feet. The temperature was perfect, with a little breeze, and I had a snack – with many stops for photos, it’d taken me almost an hour to drive the two miles, and I was very late for lunch.
Here, as on the lower slopes, I found widespread tree mortality, presumably from our long, severe drought. But I also saw some happy seedlings of both pinyon pine and juniper, so all is not lost. And cliff swallows constantly swooped past me.
I had no interest in driving to the top, with its forest of towers, and this narrow, rocky ridge was no place to linger.
The road south brought me into the head of a canyon which was very dark under the spreading thunderhead. I’d wondered if the southeast road might be better than the northwest one, but now I discovered it’s much worse – lined with sharp rocks, ledges, and deep ruts. But after a few rains, it’s also lined with very pretty flowers.
It traverses down another long ridge, and from what I could see of the next stretch of road far below, it seemed like an easier surface.
My view from above turned out to be an illusion. This descent was lined with volcanic cobbles literally from top to bottom. In the past I would’ve been a nervous wreck, but the flowers were so good I took it all in stride.
It had taken me two hours to drive five miles. This end of the road connects with an unlikely highway, a high-speed thoroughfare in the middle of nowhere that connects the giant mine with the city that supplies it, far away in the big river valley. That was my route back to the farming village, where I slowly carved my way through a very late lunch of lemonade, chips and salsa, and red enchiladas.
And after that, an hour-long drive home – discovering on the approach to our southern mountains that the haze was indeed due to wind. A wind so strong it slowed me down on the plain and tried to push me off the highway in the mountains. But those clouds had really cooled off our heat wave!
