Mount Hopkins

It was just Bill, Steve and me on this strenuous loop hike. We hadn’t been together in almost a year when we hiked San Jose Peak in Mexico.

This hike was in the Santa Rita mountains, a small skyisland south of Tucson. Mount Wrightson is the prominent peak, and the destination for most hikers who come to this hiking and birding paradise.

We started promptly at 8:15am in the cool shade of the mountain. A half hour later I took off my fleece jacket. And boy, was it steep! It was steep going up to Mount Hopkins and it was steep going down. I have been back home for two hours and can already feel my calves tightening. I wasn’t expecting to have trouble going up the mountain today, after all the peaks I have been bagging lately.

Bill led the way. It was uphill from the start. We started at the Old Baldy trailhead, hiking west as the Old Baldy trail took a sharp left to the north and continued uphill on the Carrie Nationa Trail which officially ended 1.5 miles later near an abandoned mine. Here the trail narrowed and continued uphill along a narrow, rocky dry creek. This was strenuous but pretty terrain, but where exactly where we? I would have been lost without Bill at this point, as we took a sharp right toward the Hopkins telescopes. There were too many trails converging from too many directions and had no major landmarks to orientate ourselves by.

We came across a lot of bear scat, some of it still fresh. Some of the piles were so big they resembled small mounds of red berries. Sadie didn’t catch the scent of any bears like she did in Wyoming this past summer. All we saw were a deer and a few squirrels. Red-tailed and Swainson hawks flew overhead, I spotted an interesting black-and-white moth struggling to stay alive, and heard a few raven. But we never saw any bear. I think Bill was hoping to see a few, like he did on his last hike here a few weeks ago.

The last mile was exposed along the Mount Hopkins Road as it winded up to the MMTO (Multiple Mirror Telescope Observatory ) and past the Observatory Ridge. By now I could feel my legs tire, and a yellow sign warning us of a “Very Steep Dangerous Road Ahead” was not to be taken lightly . It took us three hours to get to the upper picnic area before ascending the final 200 feet or so to the MMTO . The outside temperature registered 69 degrees.

Our views to the south were spectacular considering the haze. The Huachucas, Mules and Chiricahuas looked close and so did distant mountains in northern Sonora. Nogales spread out before us. When we looked more toward Phoenix, though, it was all dark smog. Picacho Peak was barely visible but you had to know what to look for.

The craggy peaks of Mounts Wrightson and Josephine were to our north. It didn’t look like Hopkins, at 8559 feet high, was the second-highest peak in the Santa Ritas. Like Bill told me, Hopkins is the second most PROMINET peak in the range, as there are many other peaks around Wrightson that tower over 9000'.

We never came across another hiker here. All the buildings were shut for the day. There were no workers at the telescopes, which spread immediately below us along the single-lane Mount Hopkins Road that snakes down to the valley for 13 miles. I had no idea that the Mount Hopkins telescopes were so massive; it’s no wonder they were the Forest Service’s primary concern during the 2005 Florida fire. The Smithsonian Institute and the University of Arizona both conduct research here, primarily in solar system, galactic and extragalactic astronomy. The mirrors in the MMTO are 21.5feet tall. That I would have enjoyed seeing!

The highest peak for us were the views around the MMTO, a rotating telescope open to the public but which today was a locked-up white metal building on the peak. No one was there to give us a quick tour, so we gazed around the panorama and then descended via a bushwhack down a steep but shaded hillside until we slipped and slided on thick layers of pine needles and soft dirt back to the Agua Caliente Saddle. Here the sign was misspelled as “Auga Caliente” and we still had 2.6 miles to go to the parking lot.

“It gets steep here!” said Bill as we reached the “Very Steep Vault Mine Trail”. He didn’t have to tell me, I could feel my knees give way. Oddly, at one point my knees just collapsed and I fell straight down, but was able to get right back up without the guys noticing. If Steve’s knees were rubber, as he described them, what were mine? Jelly?

This Very Steep Trail was so steep, descending 1,400 feet in a distance of a little over one half mile, that I was only too glad to at least be going down rather than up. One had to watch the trail carefully along this stretch. This trail stayed steep until it leveled off at the very dried-up Madera Creek, which we followed back to the parking lot.

Luckily no one took a bad fall although Steve made a perfect butt fall. Bill guided us down like he had been doing this for years. And, in fact, he has been on this loop trail several times. Without his help we never would have found the right switchbacks around Mount Hopkins as so many trails remain unmarked.

I liked the remoteness of this hike. Most hikers who come to Madera Canyon come here to hike up Mount Wrightson. We chose instead a more deserted trail, a perfect hike for an energetic dog.

Sadie stayed close to me and always stopped when I stopped to photograph a certain angle. She was off leash until we got back to the more crowded trails of Old Baldy. We were back at the parking lot at 2:40pm, chatted for 40 minutes in the parking lot, and left at 3:20.

I was back at the house shortly after 5pm, too tired to pass out Halloween candy. Kevin passed out candy this year, and he lucked out: our street this year was so dark from the many unoccupied homes that most families driving their kids around skipped our neighborhood. Last year I passed out three bowls of candy. This year we gave away half a bowl.