Brown Canyon Trail

I had forgotten how pretty Brown Canyon is. It's been 18 months since I have been here, the last time was with Colonel Bill in late 2009. It's an anno 1905 four-room adobe ranch house replete with storage shed, water tank and a pond where the national forest wants to stock the native leopard frog. Its location in the foothills does not provide for a view into the valley, so one has a feeling of being alone in the canyon.

This hike was led by Frank, a new member who joined when I was still club president and who's an enthusiastic 77-year-old man. This turned out to be a lovely club hike and picnic afterwards, with Frank providing all the food and beer. He set quite a high standard should these Memorial Day hikes become a club favorite. (And why not? Why only do a club picnic in December when it can be freezing cold?)

There is now a road that takes visitors to the Brown Canyon Ranch off Ramsey Road with plenty of car parking. This was new to me, as the trailhead parking is a mile away and popular with horse riders and hunters.

The meetup was for 7:30; I showed up at 7:10am with Sadie. Frank and a new couple, Paul and Rachel (who dropped out early on) were already there. Turn-out was impressive: Both Steves, Susan and her friends MaryAnn And Jeanie, Rod, Paul, Bernie, Michael (who also had to turn around early for an 11am appointment), Angela (Franks daughter) and a few new faces. Tom, a parks volunteer from Oregon overseeing the ranch house this summer, sat with us once we were back under the shade of a cottonwood enjoying our food and socializing. Frank gave us a "safety briefing" as we sat around as if all in the army listening to the standard long-weekend safety brief.

Brown Canyon is a popular multi-use trail that skirts along the perimeter of Fort Huachuca. Mountain bikers, equestrians and hikers all use this trail and dogs must be leashed while on the ranch house property. This is an easy grade for beginner hikers to our high desert as the canyon meanders along Ramsey creek as it slowly slopes up and into Ramsey Box Canyon, a hidden pool with waterfall

Once we were in the Miller Peak wilderness, I let Sadie off leash. She seemed to not mind any of the people. Sometimes she'd brush up against someone while walking and one push up a particularly steep rock wall her rear paw hit the had of John S who quickly hit her leg to get it away from his hand so that he wouldn't lose his footing.

We stayed at this dry waterfall for a while. I don't ever remember this! The water was stagnant and not something I would have had Sadie drink from, but we stayed here a bit and took some photos before joining the others in the group further up the trail that climbed to a pretty overlook of the valley and the nearby waterfall. We stayed here some more before turning around. Maybe another day I'll hike this trail all the way into Ramsey Canyon and up the Hamburg Trail, but that's a 12-mile hike and I'd need all day to do that. Today was not that kind of day!

Frank wanted to serve the food at 11am and my goodness that's when it happened, too! This didn't give us much time to hike longer, but today was more of a social hike anyway.

His daughter and son-in-law had fried chicken, various salads, sodas and beer (Budweiser) ready. I drank two Diet Cokes and skipped the Bud as I chatted with friends, took photos of the ranch and watched a Vermillion Fly Catcher flit about.

Sadie ate well today, eating two heaping piles of bones, chicken and plenty of leftover meat. She was mostly tied up to the fence around the frog pond, but once the sun was over her, she joined me under the picnic table.

I sat at one table where big Steve, Rod, Eric and Tom sat. Tom, it turns out, is like Eric an amateru astronomer, and even Rod has an interest in the field. Tom talked about his passion for the stars even as a kid, telling us a heartwretching story of meeting Commander Ed White, who died two months later in a tragic launch rehearsal explosion of Apollo 1 with two other crew members, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee. Retelling this childhood memory still brought tears to Tom's eyes.

Ed White was good friends of Tom's father. Tom and his older brother shared a room as boys. White enters one evening, squeezing the big toes of both boys. White looks Tom in the eye and asks "You two brothers?"
"Yes, Sir!" replied Tom.
"Then promise to always remain brothers!"
Two months later White burned to death when the cabin he and his crew were in caught fire, 27 January 1967. The men had no chance of survival, being in a pure oxygen chamber.

Tom told us other stories of watching launches near Titusville, FL and being fascinated with stars, nebulas and anything related to NASA.

We were under that cottonwood tree chatting until 1pm. Eric and I were coming up with ideas for hikes, such as a moon-lighted hikes or stargazing hikes (Tom said plenty gazers come to the ranch on a New Moon with their scopes) and rockhounding hikes. He and I have many of the same interests, and he shows the same youthful enthusiasm for the outdoors as I do.

I didn't get to make my rounds so well with other hikers such as Susan with whom I usually share photography tips, as Tom's stories were so fascinating, but by 1pm people were ready to leave.

The Baptist Church's marquee read 89F as I drove by at 1pm. Tucson hit 100F today, the first triple-digits for the city.

I had promised Kevin I'd be home by 1pm to join him at his friend's place in Bisbee-Warren for a graduation party for Taylor, who graduated earlier this week from Bisbee High School. But when I got home he had already left. I at least took it easy, hanging out with the dogs, writing this, and downloading photographs. The fire over the Chiricahuas was now obvious over the Mule mountains, and at over 59,000 acres now is leaving our valley air pretty brown and hazy. The increased winds this afternoon aren't going to keep the fire from destroying the western slopes of these beautiful mountains.

The shower this afternoon felt so good, even if the water wasn't too warm and, it turned out, we had no running water except for what was in our water tank. I sat in my clean underwear at this computer when the doorbell rang and the dogs went bonkers. Usually the doorbell means there's a package at the front door; the delivery guys ring the bell and leave. I grabbed K's robe and, with my hair still wrapped around my head, discovered that there was a Mexican man in the front yard wanting to know if K's old Buick Century is for sale. It's been parked on our east side with a flat tire now for several months. (Yeah, it looks real rednecky!). The man must have wondered about me and my attire, but he did catch me totally off guard. No use worrying about it now.