I went to bed sore from yesterday's injuries and decided in the last minute (it may have been when I woke up at 4:30am) to hike up Miller Peak instead of Gardner Canyon. It's a decision I do not regret. The trailhead is only 3.5 miles from our house, there's no major gas expended to get there, I wouldn't feel cautious about Sadie around strangers and I wouldn't be spending three hours driving.
Kevin went shopping early. I left the house with Sadie at 8:40am and got to the trailhead at 9:12am. There were a lot of cars in the parking lot, and I learned later most of them were from members of the Southern Arizona Bird Observatory (SABO) that was bird watching in the lower Miller Canyon.
I was feeling good and hiked at a good pace but once I came up to the SABO people, I stopped and chatted with Sheri Williamson, director and naturalist of SABO. There were indeed many birds heard and seen today, more than my last hike. Sheri told me the group was looking for a rare red bird that was allegedly spotted here recently. The group was tracking one bird Sheri said was flying around marking its territory. She identified the yellow-striped bird I saw last time at the bathtub as the Townsend Warbler and quickly took out her field guide to show me. She knows her birds! I didn't want to interrupt their sightings, thanked Sheri for her willingness to talk to me, and walked on.
I enjoy bird watching and trying to photograph birds, flowers, lizards and other wildlife always slows me down, but I couldn't sit still for hours in the woods hoping for a specific bird to fly down.
Once I got past the group the steepness began, and I started feeling the heat of the day. I slowed down many times to listen and watch birds. Columbines were now out and Red Cardinal flowers were also in bloom. What a change from the last hike a few weeks ago! I could have just as easily sat somewhere quietly in the shade to watch and listen to birds.
Once I got past the SABO group I never saw another soul on the trail.
I was so engrossed in the bird songs that I failed to pay attention to where the trail was. At the 2.5 mile mark the old trail is "closed" using a few fallen branches, but the branches aren't tall enough to act as a wall. I went over these branches and follwed the old Miller Canyon Trail, found two spots to sit and watch birds, and even got to the bubbling Miller Creek where Sadie got some water. The prettiest part of Miller Creek is here at the old, closed-off section of the trail.
I continued up this abandoned trail, noted the many fallen trees over the trail (thinking at first they had all fallen in the last two weeks) and when I hit a major rock slide and continued hopping around the rocks, I finally realized that I was on the closed trail. The real clue was realizing how close the creek was at this point, remembering that the new trail is higher and farther away from the water.
Going back down to the real turn-off was disheartening. It was 11:40am and I debated just going home after this. I don't know how much time I wasted in this canyon, perhaps 45 minutes with a snack break, and was now feeling stronger winds. Were gusts predicted for today?
I drank a lot of water and despite having had breakfast, felt low on energy. I was walking into the sun and that may have worked against me, stopping many times in a shady spot. But once I got within a mile from the Bathtub saddle, I felt energized again.
I was curious what the tub looked like. Would it still be clean or would algae have taken over again? Instead, what I saw surprised me: there was no algae but there were plenty of worms (caterpillars?) at the bottom of the tub. These "worms" weren't dead, either. I had left Sadie's bowl at home and had nothing to scoop water with, so I used my hand to sweep out the worms and whatever pine needles I could grab. The water was cold!
I got to the tub at 1:23pm. It was later than anticipated so I decided to go toward Miller Peak until 3pm and to turn around at that point regardless of where I was. We took off 15 minutes later with just an hour to spare. I felt energized and so did Sadie, and having a level trail helped. This section curves around Miller Canyon between Carr and Miller peaks. The 1977 fire burned down a lot of the Ponderosa Pines, many of which still remain as black stumps. Aspen are taking over the northern slopes of the canyon but there's stilll quite a bit of barren soil. These aspen have eyes that kept looking at us as we meandered through the grove.
About a half mile south of the tub I finally got a view of the Santa Cruz valley. Smoky haze had been predicted there and I wanted to see how bad it was. The sky overhead looked fine and I didn't taste any wood or fire, and was quite surprised to see white smoke blowing not toward Sierra Vista but toward Tuscon, making it a north-northwest wind. The smoke resembled low-lying cirrus clouds. Mount Wrightson was shrouded in smoke. Which means the hike up Gardner canyon was probably not very scenic or provided any vistas.
And boy was it windy! I had to hold on to my cap to sit and enjoy the view. The smoke seemed to slowly shift toward the east, and by the time I made it to Miller Peak at 3:01pm I could see the haze enter the San Pedro Valley. The aspen grove below the peak provided for a lush green canopy. The slopes off Carr peak were in contrast brown and grey.
I called Kevin to let him know I had made it to the peak. I was expecting a noon summit, not 3pm summit, and surely he did, too. I descended at 3:20 and made it to the tub at 4:10 which is still ten minutes earlier than my last descent from the tub. I knew that from this point on it would all be downhill and about a 90-minute hike.
Sadie seemed reenergized in the last two miles. She found some horse shit to nibble on and darted ahead of me that last mile. We got back to the truck at 5:58pm with only a few cars in the parking lot. A lone USBP van drove up as I drove down the mountain.
We were home by 6:15pm. I feel tired but satisfied to have hiked this. I wish I had the energy to start a hike like this at 7am when it's cooler; the heat clearly tired me quickly. However, I plan on doing peaks every weekend, and what better place than right here in the Huachucas? I have these mountains in my back yard, I don't need to drive all the way to Tucson to hike!
The Miller Canyon trail is truly a beautiful trail to get to Miller peak. the hiker sees a high desert, travels up a riparian habitat of sycamores, oaks, junipers and various succulents and then ends the one-way hike in an alpine setting with panoramic vistas. And although the grade is steep in the second and third mile and almost two miles are exposed to the sun, this hike offers scenery, physical stamina and diversity in flora and fauna. I feel honored being so close to this canyon.
I'm seriously thinking of hiking up to the tub saddle in two weeks and starting from our home. I'm also thinking about backpacking the southern section of the Arizona Trail which runs the ridgeline of the southern Huachucas and starting from our home and up and over the tub saddle. I'd have to work out the logistics and check out water and fire hazards, though. My big question is the availability of water and my personal safety, as the area around Parker Canyon lake has become a haven for drug smugglers. Kevin isn't planning on anything this Memorial Day, and since I'm leaving for Indiana right after the holiday and spending three weeks in Chicagoland (without Sadie), he's willing to be SAG for me. If we can agree to making Patagonia the pick-up point, this would be doable. Hmm, this is something to seriously think about.
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