Monday, June 1st, 2026
Monday, June 1st, 2026: Hikes, Log, Mineral, Mogollon Mountains, Southwest New Mexico.
I was out of pain meds, but my doc was on vacation – so I’d been minimizing my activity level and trying to avoid using the right arm. But it was Sunday – I just had to do a hike.
Even after eight years of hiking the backcountry and wilderness areas within a 2-hour drive, there still remain many, many trails I haven’t hiked – some because they require backpacking in bear habitat, and others because they just haven’t appealed to me. One of the latter is a two-mile “shortcut” between the dirt road that crosses our high mountains, and one of our most spectacular canyons.
We owe Aldo Leopold an immense debt of gratitude for his foresight in obtaining wilderness designation for such a vast area, over a hundred years ago, when environmentalism as such didn’t exist and few Americans were concerned about habitat degradation. The more than 1,200 square miles of designated wilderness in my back yard include dozens of spectacular canyons, waterfalls, and caves – and because of the wilderness designation and lack of road access, most of those features are hidden from tourists and can only be seen via arduous hikes or backpacks.
Most of them are so hard to reach that even today, little or no information is available online, and the only way to discover them is by blundering into them blindly, on foot.
Today’s trail hadn’t seemed an option before – it was too short when I was in good condition, and it involved too much elevation gain when I was in recovery, trying to protect my knee and foot. But now, I felt my joints could handle it. Warm weather was forecast in town, and the trail is higher in elevation and forested, so there might be shade. And it enters that canyon well above the well-known lowest stretch, beyond which no one seems to venture anymore.
Our famous dirt road over the 9,000 foot crest begins at the edge of the ghost town, and today’s trailhead lies not much farther, in the bottom of a narrow canyon just beyond the last house, a ramshackle cabin purchased last year by somebody from far away who, like most city dwellers, apparently always dreamed of a cabin in the woods, oblivious to fire ecology and the flash floods that periodically wipe out roads like this. I heard them hammering away on their property as I set off up the trail, which begins by climbing up the ridge between this and the canyon of my destination, from about 6,800 feet at the trailhead to about 7,300 feet at the saddle.
Despite the elevation, it was open woodland, I was exposed on a clear, sunny day, and I was sweating like a pig, swarmed by even more flies than before.
This is the steeper, western side of our high mountains – hence the spectacular canyons – and the ridges, creeks, and road all climb from west to east here. The road actually tops out at the northern end of the 9,000 foot crest – the canyon I was heading for is the northernmost of our big west-side canyons, and the ridges beyond it are generally a thousand feet lower than the main crest behind me. I glimpsed them from the saddle, but the trail on the opposite side of the big clearing led immediately down into mixed-conifer forest with limited views.
I had a vague sense that it would be steep, but holy shit! – this turned out to be one of the steepest trails I’ve ever encountered. The average grade, descending that narrow side canyon to the bottom of the main canyon, is about 30 percent over a distance of 1.2 miles. The habitat alternated between mature mixed-conifer, shrub-and-grassland, and pinyon-juniper-oak. As a result, much of it was exposed, but little seemed to be recently burnt, so it was pretty as well as hot. I especially enjoyed a continuous stand of tall bigleaf maples when the trail entered the side canyon bottom.
The last 150 yards of the trail were at a minimum 40 percent grade – I have no idea how anyone could even build a trail at that grade, since you wouldn’t have stable footing to wield a tool – and I had to side-step down it. And at the bottom, a little below 6,200 feet, instead of views of spectacular cliffs or rimrock, all I found was a dense riparian jungle.
My trail ended in the jungle. The creek was flowing a short distance away, where I glimpsed some logs that had been sawn, decades ago, indicating a creek crossing on the main canyon trail. But when I crossed the canyon there, no trail awaited. So I headed back to the opposite bank, following a vague opening through the jungle that immediately ended in a dark thicket of seedlings.
These canyon bottoms are narrow, so there seemed no chance of getting lost. I began forcing my way through the vegetation, where I was soon stopped by the contorted trunk of a massive oak that had fallen across most of the floodplain. And with difficulty, trying to protect my injured shoulder and recovering foot and knee, I struggled under it into the jungle on the other side.
From glimpses I’d had across the creek, I believed that this, the south side of canyon bottom, was the correct side for a route up canyon, so I just kept forcing my way through the dense young trees and over the deadfall, and eventually reached a little clearing with the remains of a campfire circle predating our big 2012 wildfire. I was definitely on the right track!
And just beyond that, I reached the old trail, which had survived the post-fire floods and debris by climbing the south slope of the canyon. In fact, it climbed 70-80 feet above the creek for quite a distance – and despite it having good but narrow tread, I was amused to find the 3-inch trunk of a contorted oak that had literally grown across the trail at calf level, extending a dozen feet on the opposite side, since this trail last saw regular use. I might actually be the first person here since the 2012 fire.
Of course, the trail eventually descended back into the riparian jungle and disappeared. And after forcing my way farther through the jungle, I suddenly confronted the 4-foot-diameter trunk of a fallen Douglas-fir, with branches intact, forming an impenetrable barrier.
Fortunately the root cavity was just upslope, so I was able to scramble around the giant, and within a short distance came to an obvious creek crossing, where I saw an opening in the vegetation on the other side. I crossed, climbed the low bank, and followed a clearing, clambering between more deadfall, and entering a forested obstacle course of deadfall that I picked my way over to the next obvious creek crossing. I figured I’d gone a half mile, and the opposite bank offered more dark jungle. Ahead was a broad opening in the canopy where a stand of young ash trees had mostly died off, facing a broad scree fall on the north slope of the canyon. I figured that would be a good spot to log a GPS waypoint, and the gravel bank on the south side would be a good spot to hang out and wait for the satellite connection.
But of course, I was restless, and made my way upstream on the opposite bank for a more than a hundred yards farther, until through the trees I spotted what appeared to be a sizable clearing on the opposite bank. Could it be an old campsite? I fought my way across. It would’ve been nice – except for the usual danger of falling pine limbs – but there was no evidence of fire rings or trail there.
There’s zero evidence online that anyone has been up this canyon since 2012, and it would be pointless asking the Forest Service – they’re all newcomers who rotate out every few years. I found a shoeprint midway up the initial slope from the trailhead, but nothing in the saddle or anywhere on the descent, so I assume I’m the first to hike it since at least last year. The “shortcut” trail is sporadically blocked by oak seedlings, even in the first few yards, so despite its good tread, it remains unpopular – dead-ending as it does in a canyon-bottom jungle.
Since COVID, trail crews have been busy all over our wilderness, clearing trails I’ve never seen or heard of – I wonder why this ten-mile canyon bottom with a perennial stream, climbing from 5,400 feet at its mouth to 8,500 feet at its head, remains untouched? Not that I’m complaining – the wilder the better for me.
Returning to the side canyon trail was tricky – I attempted a detour around that big fallen Douglas-fir, and spent some time lost in the jungle. But I finally stumbled upon a sawn log – clear indication there was a trail there once – and continuing in that direction I eventually emerged at the bottom of my dreaded 40-percent grade.
Climbing steep grades without putting weight on the ball of your foot is a real challenge. But this is where I realized I was actually having fun. Yeah, covering distance on a groomed trail gives me a sense of accomplishment, and can provide faster access to remote, spectacular destinations. But that bushwhack through the jungle, routefinding and stumbling upon random evidence and stretches of abandoned trail, is the kind of hike I enjoy most.
My unexpected happiness made the long slog to the saddle less of an ordeal.
Another reason I’ve avoided this trail is that the out-hike mostly involves descending, and the return hike involves mostly climbing. So I was really looking forward to the final, relatively gentle, descent to the trailhead, after which I planned to grab a burger at the tiny shack in the ghost town.
I reached the vehicle exactly five hours after departure – which for a round-trip hike of five miles is very slow. But stops amounted to at least a half hour, that bushwhack was definitely slower than usual, and steep climbs likewise go slow as I try to protect my foot.
I reached the ghost town, which was mostly deserted, shortly after 4 pm, and realized it already felt like a long day – I would rather get home early, take a leisurely shower, and warm up leftovers.
