Straddling the Crest
Monday, May 4th, 2026: Chiricahuas, Hikes, Shaw, Southeast Arizona.
Another tough decision this Sunday. I’d been really careful with my foot for the past month, and last week had been the first free of foot pain since the beginning of January. I knew I should probably continue the short hikes with low elevation gain for at least another week, but the next one on my list was at least a two-hour drive north. And after last week’s long drive, it was hard to justify.
My appetite made the decision for me. The best food would be southwest of here in Arizona, a significantly shorter drive, and it would offer a couple of hiking options under 4 miles and 700 vertical feet.
The forecast was mostly cloudy, with a high in the 70s at lower elevations. With an early start, I arrived just before the cafe opened, and enjoyed an early brunch. My plan was to do the hike, return to the cafe five or six hours later for an early dinner, then drive home before sunset.
But the hikes I’d considered were too close to the cafe – I would finish early and end up driving home for boring leftovers. There was another hike 45 minutes away, up on the crest, that I’d been hoping to do. So I drove up the canyon to the end of the pavement, let 7 pounds of air out of my tires, and hit the rocky road to the crest.
The far northern stretch of the crest trail is accessed from an old mine road that I’d passed many times. It turned out to be narrow, rough, and very seldom used, so it was fun to drive in my little Sidekick – but I imagine it would be a lot more stressful in a Jeep, Bronco, 4Runner, or any other supersized modern 4WD. I suspect that’s why most people are now leaving their trucks in the campground and exploring these backcountry trails with UTVs instead.
The crest is like a knife edge here, so driving the road back and forth over it gave me a preview of the expansive views to east and west that I would enjoy on the trail. I reached the trailhead in about a half mile.
A barbed-wire fence runs along much of the crest here, reminding me that despite being such a hot spot for recreation and science, these mountains also offer prime cattle range. The trail starts almost three miles north of the wilderness boundary and leads in the opposite direction. Still, the only cattle sign I found was years old, and I couldn’t tell whether it was on the east or west side of the fence.
The trail starts by passing through the fence, and runs beside the road for a while before climbing over a low peak. I found no evidence anyone had used it, at least since last fall. I had no trouble following it, but it was often overgrown and had stretches with no visible tread. Approaching that first peak is where I really started doubting my post-brunch decision, because it was much steeper than expected, and steep is what hurts my foot.
As usual, I made excuses, vowing go slow and take short steps – and that’s what I did. On the way out, it took me two hours to go just over a mile and a half.
This trail leads to the shoulder of the highest peak on the northern crest, and beyond. That peak is only 7,800 feet, much lower than the peaks on the central crest, which approach 10,000 feet. Just before the peak, the trail dips into a 7,070-foot saddle where it meets other equally abandoned and disused trails coming from east and west. Reaching the saddle would give me more elevation than I wanted to put on the foot, especially with these steep grades, so I figured I would turn back as soon as I had a clear view of either the peak or the saddle.
But the intervening hike turned out to be a non-stop rollercoaster, with five intervening peaks or bumps, continually moving back and forth between east and west sides of the crest. Which apart from the strain on my foot, gave me views that would’ve been amazing except for the heavy cloud cover and general darkness of the landscape.
On the north side of the second peak, the trail drops into a surprisingly lush Douglas-fir forest which made me feel a thousand feet higher. And after I passed out of the forest, I got a view east which I realized offered my first view into the lower canyon of a big west-side creek that I’d hiked last November and had hoped to explore more. That canyon features spectacular rimrock and a series of four side-canyon trails that have been abandoned since the 2011 wildfire and have seen little or no use since then – fantastic bushwhacking opportunities.
I realized that although not particularly interesting in its own right, this trail is worth it just for the different vantage it offers on the landscape.
As I continued lower down the northern crest, the trail passed back and forth over even sharper ridgelines and traversed steeper slopes. On the east side, I always had a view of the iconic granite formation that resembles the profile of Cochise, the legendary Apache leader whose territory this was.
To take some of the load off my left foot, I was now using trekking poles – but that put more strain on my rotator cuff and bicep injuries, which are by far the most painful part of my body now. Any time I try to relieve one source of pain, it usually makes something else worse.
Much of the trail is overgrown with dense bunchgrass that I just forced my way between, and halfway down a long switchback on the north side of one of those intervening peaks, I noticed a reptile tail disappearing below bunchgrass where I was about to place my next step.
I took off my sunglasses (which on this dark day I hadn’t really needed), and leaned down for a closer look. Obviously a small snake, then I noticed the barely formed rattles, and the head emerged a few inches away – a juvenile rattler, probably Western diamondback. With no time for a photo, I watched as it disappeared into the next bunchgrass. I wear heavy canvas pants with cuffs that completely cover the tops of my boots, so there’s little danger for me, even from a mature rattler. But it’s always special to encounter one, and since the temperature up there had only reached the 60s, I was surprised to see any snake exposed and active.
Finally, I climbed and traversed the last bump on the ridge, came into view of the peak for which the trail is named, and spotted another trail, hundreds of feet below, coming up from the east. This gave me an idea of how much elevation I would lose, and have to regain, if I continued to the saddle. So after reaching a level stretch of trail facing the peak, I stopped and turned on my GPS message unit.
I was in a steep north-facing clearing surrounded by Gambel oak, so I was surprised to immediately receive a text on my phone from the GPS provider. But typically, when I returned home and checked the waypoint, it was incredibly inaccurate – off by an error of more than 600 horizontal feet and more than 400 vertical feet. So much for the miracle of satellite technology.
Despite being mostly uphill, the return hike took only about half as long as the descent. According to published maps, the distance from trailhead to junction saddle is 2.5 miles, so I was surprised when I got home that night, plotted my route, and discovered I’d only gone 1.67 miles one-way – consistent with the online trail guide which shows 2.1 miles to the saddle. However, I did accumulate over 1,000 feet of elevation gain, a 50 percent increase from past weeks, so there’s some progress.
I’d tried hard to go easy on my foot, and as far as I could tell, it was okay – but tomorrow would be the real test.
And meanwhile, the trekking poles I used to protect my foot, had strained my shoulder injury – on top of the strain of driving here – so I ended up needing a pain pill before leaving the crest, another by the time I got home that night, and still another when I woke in pain the next morning. At this rate a wheelchair can’t be far off…
The drive down from the crest got me to the cafe at a perfect time, before the dinner “rush”. After my junior rattlesnake encounter in the backcountry high above, I was amused to find a convoy of expensive vehicles with California plates stopped on the paved canyon road, and men with elaborate cameras filming something on the shoulder. I slowed and rolled my window down, and an older woman in stylish outdoor gear breathlessly exclaimed, “There’s a rattlesnake crossing the road!”
The drive home took me out from the under the day’s near-solid cloud cover, and the low-angle sunlight highlighted unexpected banks of glorious cumulus clouds that immediately recalled my mother’s joy during last year’s monsoon season. I realized that at the end of her life, she’d given me yet another gift – how could I ever take our monsoon skies for granted, or see clouds like this without thinking of her, and what we’ve lost?
