Hiking Through Time
Tuesday, March 14th, 2023: Coronado, Hikes, Indigenous Cultures, Society, Southeast Arizona.
I set out simply hoping to escape the snow in our local mountains – and ended up enduring hardship and danger in a remote, exotic landscape, to finally discover an ancient mystery.
City people think of mines as 19th century phenomena and copper as a 19th century commodity. But all the electronic and mechanical devices and machines we use are made of natural materials mined from holes in the ground that used to be natural habitat.
Electric cars use up to ten times the copper of conventional cars. Solar plants and wind farms consume massive amounts of copper. Mines and copper aren’t the past – they’re the future our colonial lifestyles and worship of progress have committed us to.
I live in a copper mining town – I can’t ignore or deny our impact on nature. It hurts me deeply to see these gaping wounds where wildlife and indigenous people once flourished, former heavens we’ve turned into toxic hells. 24-hour factories manned by dark-skinned laborers who are taught that they’re making life better for the rest of us. Hells we enlightened white professionals tend to avoid while fantasizing that our progressive lifestyles are saving nature.
As huge as our local mines are, they’re nothing compared to the ten-mile-long monstrosity over in Arizona. I was interested in trails in the mountains just north of the mine, but they were far enough away that I’d need places to eat and stay overnight after the hike, in or near the forbidding company town.
After weeks of sporadic research, I discovered a refurbished historic hotel in the quaint village below the mine town, reserved a room and put together some information on the closest of the trails. The topography of those mountains is incredibly complex – it’s not even a named mountain range, it’s just a confusing region of countless ridges and peaks, ranging from just below 4,000′ to just above 8,000′, rising between the valleys of a south-trending small river in the east and a south-trending large creek in the west.
A narrow, vertiginous paved highway leads north through the open-pit mine and up into the mountains, where it follows sinuous ridgelines for about another 50 miles to the base of the Mogollon Rim, finally climbing the Rim to the 9,000′ alpine plateau.
According to my topo map, the trail I wanted starts about 8 miles north of the mine, on a north-south ridgetop at 6,200′, surrounded by higher ridges and peaks. Trending generally westward, it first circles the head of a small north-south canyon then climbs to a high saddle on the next north-south ridge. This high saddle is the divide between two landscapes.
The first landscape is the north-trending corridor beginning with the mine and continuing up the highway. The second landscape, past the high saddle, appeared on the map as a long, broad valley descending westward between two east-west ridges.
Past the saddle, the trail appeared to descend this valley along the foot of its northern wall, through lower-elevation habitat I expected to consist mostly of exposed grass-and-shrublands. The entire trail was variously listed at 10-11 miles one-way, too long for an out-and-back day hike this far from home, so I planned to go only as far as conditions and time allowed – ideally 7 or 8 miles.
I usually avoid trails that start by descending and return by climbing, but beggars can’t be choosers. I do seek elevation gain, and while the map showed this trail descending from 6,200′ at its start to 4,200′ at its end, when I plotted it, the cumulative elevation gain over a 7-mile segment turned out to be more 4,000′. I would learn the reason for this soon enough.
I found little online information – this trail seemed seldom-used. I did find, in one old hiking trip report, mention of a prehistoric Native American pictograph site somewhere above that western segment of the trail below the east-west ridge, along with some vague, poorly shot photos. They didn’t clearly identify the location, which was both good for the site and bad for me, but they mentioned springs and black water piping left by a rancher in the vicinity.
Sunday’s sky was forecast to be mostly clear with scattered clouds and a high in the mid-60s. The drive took longer than expected, but in crossing the state line, I regained the hour I’d lost at home with daylight savings time.
As I drove through the mine, house-sized trucks and apartment-building-sized shovels operated in the distance, so dwarfed by the scale of the pits that I could barely discern them. But on the highway itself, I encountered virtually no traffic, nor on the narrow, winding, crumbling road with sheer drop-offs and no guard rails that climbs out of the mine canyon into the mountains. After pulling over briefly to check my map, I easily found the turnoff for the trail, a high-clearance dirt track. The map I’d brought showed the trail starting at the highway, but I decided to drive up the dirt road a ways instead.
The dirt road led to a ridgetop saddle with a big cleared parking area, where I found four pickup trucks with camper shells parked at random and 8-10 young people milling about with miscellaneous gear piled on the ground. Yikes! But their trucks were old and they were drably and cheaply dressed – not in the latest styles from REI – so I could tell they weren’t typical yuppie adrenaline seekers. And they were largely ignoring me, looking a little dazed like they’d just gotten up.
I parked and asked the nearest guy where they were from and what they were up to. He said they were near the end of a ten-day trip, mostly from Montana. They’d been in my hometown last week, and were planning a two-night backpack on this trail. He said he’d hiked it back in 2007 – but they all appeared to be in their early-to-mid twenties so he must’ve been about eight years old then. He mentioned the pictograph site and said it was right above a corral, with a black plastic water pipe running straight up to the site. That’s where they were heading and planning to camp.
As we were talking, one of the pickups drove away, back toward the highway. Perplexed, I thanked the young guy for the information, shouldered my pack, and headed off. It was chilly but sunny, so I tied my sweater around my waist, hoping the exercise and sun would keep me warm. I’d gathered from the old trip report that the trail began as a two-track mine road. Descending steeply into a narrow canyon through scrub and open pinyon-juniper-oak woodland, it was deeply eroded and blocked sporadically by boulders. The only tracks I found were from horses and a couple of hikers, from a week or more ago when the trail had been wet and muddy.
I began to realize that I’d misinterpreted distances on the topo map. I knew that in this first part of the trail the mine would remain visible on my southern horizon, but once I got past that high saddle it would be hidden and I would be in a new, wild, yet unseen world. Now, I began to realize that the high saddle was going to be much farther than I’d expected. This old road wound in and out of side drainages and forested habitat, traversing up and down steep grades, from which I couldn’t even glimpse the far ridge with the high saddle.
I was surprised to find Arizona cypresses on east-facing slopes. I have a couple of big ones in my backyard, but I’d never encountered them in the wild. Here, they were mixed in with pinyon, juniper, and oaks. From a distance, they looked much like firs or spruces, but at much lower elevation.
Eventually the road took me up over a low, rounded, exposed ridge, where a cold wind yanked my hat off. I was discouraged to realize I needed to drop into yet another deep side drainage before climbing toward the high ridge. I hadn’t noticed any of this up-and-down stuff on the map.
The old road ended at the bottom of the drainage, at a muddy, nearly dry stock pond and a low earthen dam. Below the dam I found a dilapidated trail sign pointing to an almost completely overgrown single track. This followed a trickle of water a few hundred yards to the edge of a cliff with fairly spectacular rock formations. From there, instead of climbing to the high saddle, the trail continued to descend, rounding an outlying shoulder where I found myself facing a dense forest across yet another narrow canyon. My high saddle was still hidden somewhere even farther above.
The farther I went, the steeper the climbs I faced. The next climb entered the forest, which turned out to be an almost pure stand of Arizona cypress. The grueling climb was only partly compensated by the botanical novelty. Disorienting, the cypresses felt like an alpine forest from three or four thousand feet higher – strange and mysterious. I saw the occasional pinyon or alligator juniper, but mostly just the stately cypresses, their branches densely interwoven.
Somewhere in that climb, the horse and hiker tracks ended and I seemed to be on virgin trail. By my watch I figured I’d gone a couple miles. I eventually climbed out of the forest and found myself facing east across a mile of intervening drainages to the cleared saddle where I’d parked. I could see my vehicle, but all the Montana pickup trucks seemed to be gone. Why had they given up on their trip?
The trail then curved to my right onto a south slope which was mostly scrub, facing the distant mine. Then, surprisingly, the trail began to descend again, rounding several more shoulders, still overlooking the mine to the south, before I finally spotted what must be the dividing ridge holding the high saddle.
This required yet another steep climb, but it was a huge relief to finally reach the little saddle which marked the divide between the “mine” side and the western backcountry I’d worked so hard to reach. It had taken me an hour and a half and more than three miles of steep up and down climbing.
The trail past the saddle was as steep as anything I’d faced so far, and much rockier. But gaps in the forest began to reveal a new world of endless western views and, to my right, the south slope of a ridge banded with red and white cliffs and ledges.
I’d left the cypress forest behind and was now dropping from open pinyon-juniper-oak woodland onto shallower grassy slopes dotted with shrubs. The narrow track got fainter and more overgrown, but I was reassured by the periodic appearance of long-established cairns.
The temperature remained in the low 60s, and a cold wind was hitting these open slopes so I had to tie my hat down tight. But the sun kept me warm.
I’d completely misinterpreted the map on this side, too. I’d expected the trail to descend a long valley westward along the foot of a high east-west ridge. The high ridge was there on my right, but a seemingly endless series of drainages cut southward from it, dissecting the valley into a seemingly endless series of rounded humps and deep gullies. My trail would have to climb down into and up over them like a rollercoaster. I was still hoping to find the pictographs, but I couldn’t imagine where anyone would put a corral in that convoluted landscape.
At this elevation, both catclaw acacia and honey mesquite grew together along the trail, and before long my skin, shirt, and pants all bore numerous scratches.
Up and down I went, over and over again, on a nearly invisible trail lined with sharp embedded rocks that had me stumbling and cursing. At several points I had to stop and spend minutes scouting among the dense, dry grasses for the trail ahead. In a few spots with bare dirt atop low ridges, I found the tracks of a man in sneakers who’d walked this way during a wet period, more than a week ago. Apart from him, no one.
Finally I reached the rounded top of the highest intervening hump and faced a big side canyon that cut far into the high ridge on my right. I found it on my map – it would require another steep downclimb of several hundred feet, and another steep ascent on the other side. Great.
I figured I’d gone five miles so far and simply had no chance of reaching the corral – which was also marked on my map – or the pictograph site. It was a beautiful day and this was a spectacular landscape, but it’d been one of the hardest hikes I could remember.
However, I still had time, so I carefully descended the dangerous, rock-strewn trail to the dense riparian corridor in the canyon bottom, where I found a creek carrying clear, ice-cold snowmelt.
Unfortunately, the trail seemed to end at the creek. The only clue was an old sign pointing downstream to a spring – apparently the creek is normally dry. I followed a faint path to where it ended at the bank of the creek. I crossed and saw a dim opening in the dense vegetation ahead, and shortly came to a tiny clearing where a barely discernable track switchbacked up the dark slope through the trees. Emerging from the riparian canopy, I found myself in what looked like a very steep, rock-filled erosional gully, but I kept climbing, and soon emerged on the familiar, overgrown, rocky, almost completely hidden single-track. A cold wind again threatened to take my hat, and I faced more rollercoaster ridges and steep climbs ahead.
The cairns had ended and I was left with only my routefinding skills. And past the big canyon, trail conditions deteriorated further, with the thorns of both catclaw and mesquite often blocking my way. With no hope of reaching the pictograph site, but with a little time still remaining before I had to turn back, I forged ahead as best I could. The rock “bluffs” above on my right were getting taller and more spectacular.
And after climbing up and down several more side drainages, I finally reached a deeper one where the trail really seemed to end. I explored a few options, but they all terminated in catclaw thickets and piles of rocks. Suddenly, returning from one of these forays, I noticed something bright red in the distance, just above the trail I’d arrived on.
It turned out to be a jumble of plastic cord, and next to it was a loose pile of galvanized water pipe, all stashed under a little tree. Scouting around a little I also found some loose lengths of black plastic pipe.
No corral – not even the hint of level ground on this high slope – but could this be the departure point to the pictograph site? I had no more time left – but shouldn’t I at least make an effort to find the water pipe descending from the bluffs?
I returned to the bottom of the steep little gully. Above me, giant boulders blocked the drainage below the cliffs. I laboriously climbed a little ways up, getting more and more discouraged in the boulder-choked drainage. But then I saw the black water pipe, draped over a boulder above! This had to be it!
It was obviously going to be a brutal climb, and I was sure that if I continued, I’d be stuck trying to find my way back to the vehicle in the dark. But I had a headlamp, and the last hour and a half of trail should be easy to follow. So I continued.
Having started in the gully, which was getting deeper, with sheer walls, I had to do some really dangerous moves to follow the pipe out of it onto the 45 degree, catclaw-choked slope above. From there, it was a long, slow, dangerous scramble toward the foot of the cliff, which loomed at least 150′ tall. But I was now absolutely sure this was the place – it matched what I’d read in the old hikers’ trip report, and I could tell there was an overhang and a ledge up there under the cliff.
Interestingly, although the pipe had clearly been abandoned, and surplus sections of it littered the slope, when I came to a tee fitting with shutoff valves, water was leaking out abundantly. It was still connected to the source, somewhere above.
Emerging onto the ledge below the bluff, I immediately spotted the pictographs, and the cave behind them, with its two seeps. The previous hikers had called it an Anasazi site, showing typical ignorance. But as I approached these signs from the deep past, my whole body registered its presence in a sacred place, starting with the tingling in my spine. I hadn’t felt like this since my last trip to Utah.
Canyon wrens cried and cliff swallows wheeled above as I explored the cave and the long ledge. It was blanketed with old cowpies and strewn with ranchers’ debris, but the rock writing was undisturbed. This was the most remote and little-known major site I’d ever found.
The Forest Service map I carried showed the corral nearly a mile west of here, in a fairly level spot. The 16-year-old memories of the Montana folks had understandably been a little rusty. But I was more curious about the water pipe, and the seeps under the cliff. This is normally a very dry area – the creeks and springs were running now after our wet winter, but would there really be a water source here, high on this slope, year-around? That would certainly explain the pictographs as well as the water pipe, and make this a precious site in more ways than one.
At this point, I no longer cared that I was late. But I was facing a really dangerous descent from the ledge, followed by a long climb to the high saddle, with countless brutal ups and downs before and after – hence the over 4,000′ cumulative elevation gain. My first job was to avoid injury on the way back down to the trail.
Taking it slow, I made it down safely, and vowed to take it easy on the entire return. But my left foot condition had been triggered for the first time in almost a year. I’d switched to winter boots in June when our monsoon started early, and when monsoon transitioned to snows I’d kept wearing them until now. Those boots have the stiffest available soles, but today I’d reverted to my old favorites, Goretex boots with slightly more flexible soles, and my foot was not happy. My knee was complaining, too.
If I took a pain pill, I would dehydrate faster, and with the arduous climbing in warmer temps, I was already running low on water. So when I reached the creek in the big side canyon, I stopped to fill and zap a liter bottle with my Steri-Pen. It was cold and delicious, and I popped a pain pill for my knee and foot.
After the steep climb out of that canyon onto the next shoulder, as I started down into the next drainage, I was surprised by voices. A twenty-something girl, wearing a bundle of fine rings through her nasal septum, appeared out of the scrub, followed by three tall young guys. As we talked, I learned they were part of the group with the pickup trucks. They said their other friends had had to leave early. I started raving about the pictograph site, but the girl said she’d also been here in 2007. I found myself liking them more and more for their cheap, well-worn gear and outfits. They were taking ten-day camping trips instead of competing for high-paying desk jobs. But I remained mystified about what they’d been doing all day, and why they’d gotten such a late start.
I continued and got lost in a badly overgrown area, wasting about 20 minutes scouting in several directions before relocating the trail. The final climb out of this remote backcountry to the high saddle seemed endless.
Once past the saddle, although it would still be a rollercoaster with brutal grades, on average it would be downhill – at least until the final climb to the parking area. I was mostly in shadow now and had to pull on my sweater. And those cypress forests were downright gloomy.
Most of the trees were less than 20 years old – many tall snags stood among them, but they hadn’t been killed by fire, so their deaths remained a mystery. The new trees and seedlings formed impenetrable thickets.
In the broad drainage before the final climb, another old two-track takes off north. I assumed it led to abandoned mine works. But checking the map again that night, I saw that it has its own Forest Service trail name and number – the Crystal Cave trail. It’s only a tenth of a mile long. But I couldn’t find any information on it online. More intrigue.
I’d hiked through time, from our misbelief that copper mining is an industry of the past, to our deluded future of “clean, green, renewable” technologies that rape Paradise and turn it into a toxic Hell, to the not-so-distant antiquity of sustainable indigenous culture. And back again.
I’d gained more elevation than on any hike since last October, before the winter snowstorms. Preparing to return to the mine town to look for dinner and my hotel room, I wasn’t sure whether I envied the backpackers, or should consider camping on these Arizona day hikes instead of sleeping indoors.
The fact is, whereas city people plan backpacking trips once or twice a year, and do the rest of their hiking in crowded parks near town, I get to do these remote day hikes every Sunday. Turning them into backpacks would subtract several days a week from the work I desperately need to finish at home, and camping overnight would reduce the time left for hiking – I’d have to return earlier to set up camp and cook. Although I do envy backpackers when I meet them, I get much more wilderness hiking in, week to week – and I still do longer camping and backpacking trips once or twice a year.
The sun set as I was driving back through the mine. I turned off into the company town for the first time, found the sole restaurant, where I orded dinner to go, and grabbed beer at the nearby supermarket. Architecture and infrastructure were functional, bare-bones, but well-maintained.
Then, in full dark, I located my hotel in the old village below. I was exhausted, sore, and starving. The little building, which is not staffed, and in which I was apparently the only registered guest, was dark and locked up for the night. I had the code but couldn’t figure out how to operate the coded entry, so I had to call and wait for the manager to show up and let me in.
After dinner and a shower, I was still so excited about the hike, I finally had to take a sleeping pill, sometime long after midnight.
