{"id":21574,"date":"2020-01-06T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T19:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/?p=21574"},"modified":"2023-09-07T15:34:28","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T21:34:28","slug":"two-eagle-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/?p=21574","title":{"rendered":"Two Eagle Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Deep snow on the mountains means I can’t hike my usual trails that go higher than 8,000′. I needed to find something at lower elevation. I decided to hike a forest road that starts at 6,000′ and climbs to an 8,000′ peak. I’ve climbed this peak many times from the opposite direction, which is much easier, but I couldn’t reach that end because of snow on the road.<\/p>\n

This road quickly climbs several hundred feet to provide a view to the west. Looking up toward the peak I was approaching, I saw two golden eagles. This is the fifth weekend in a row that I’ve seen golden eagles!<\/p>\n

Midway up the road reaches the ponderosa pine forest, and traverses the shallow valley of a stream, which is dry most of the year. Then the road starts climbing again, and is very steep the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately the peak is covered with towers which provide our local TV, radio, and cell phone service.<\/p>\n

\"To <\/a>
To the west, snow covers the Pinaleno range in Arizona <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Golden <\/a>
Golden eagles <\/div> <\/div>
\"IMG_7535\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"IMG_7536\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"Steep <\/a>
Steep climb <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Last <\/a>
Last stretch leading to peak <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"To <\/a>
To the southwest, the Chiricahuas <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Panorama <\/a>
Panorama east <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"IMG_7568\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

A hundred yards below the peak I encountered a big pickup truck with a young couple, coming up the road in the snow. They were the first people to drive up this road since the last snow. It’s barely driveable with 4WD.<\/p>\n

We smiled and waved at each other, and hours later, near the bottom, they passed me on their way down. They were probably thinking, what a crazy guy to walk up this road instead of driving. I was thinking, what lazy people to drive up the road instead of walking.<\/p>\n

Near the bottom, I turned back and saw the moon rising in the east.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_7582\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deep snow on the mountains means I can’t hike my usual trails that go higher than 8,000′. I needed to find something at lower elevation. I decided to hike a forest road that starts at 6,000′ and climbs to an 8,000′ peak. I’ve climbed this peak many times from the opposite direction, which is much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[125,49,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-burro-mountains","category-hikes","category-southwest-new-mexico"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/IMG_7546.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21574"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21586,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21574\/revisions\/21586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}