Reef Townsite

Reef Townsite is the second-highest elevation drivers can go on the Carr Canyon Road. (The highest elevation is the Upper Carr Peak campsite a mile uproad.) It's an old mining community that was active over 100 years ago, from 1893 through the early 1920s. There is a campsite here and also a separate day-use parking area. Alicia and I went here this morning, initially just to look for chrystals but then just to chat, explore and walk around. I took Sadie and Sieger; Luna stayed at home because of suspected kennel cough.

I had been here a few times, and was here last in early March to first see the damage. The actual reef with cliffs now is a totally destroyed flat mesa overlooking the valley. All the scrub oak and manzanitas are now burned. The oaks are growing back but the manzanitas are lifeless. The Forest Service here is probably glad about that as manzanitas are considered non-native and invasive. The rocky mesa is too rocky to sustain tall pines. Years ago this was a popular paragliding area but I don't see much activity here now. A few years ago ATVers still came here (as is evident in the beer cans I still find.) What the nearby cliffs are good for, though, is watching hawks in the fall.

We didn't find worthwhile chrystals but we did discover some new (old, actually!) mining trails. The post-fire floods, however, have wiped out some of the trails, and in other cases, mining shafts have totally been buried by mud and other debris. This is a nice area to explore in cooler, more overcast skies. At least we had an early start and were up here by 8:30am. We were back at our cars by the Mesquite Tree restaurant by 12:45pm, and by then it got really hot.

We did discover what looks like a USBP scope facing into Miller Canyon, and a nearby solar antenna. These were definitely not here before the fire! Is Miller Canyon that infamous with drug smugglers? We sat here overlooking our neighborhood, and we chatted about old co-workers from years ago. From Carr Peak yesterday I could see the heavy damage of the Reef area. This may be the last area that can grow back after the fire.

"I don't understand people who say there's nothing to do here!" said Alicia. Those people don't bother exploring the mountains.

There weren't too many people this high up. Maybe because all the remaining shade is at the campsite. We came across two other cars that drove up the road and down again, and another couple off the campsite were conducting an area survey. We walked as far down the campground as the first cliffs of Carr Falls, but to explore that will be for another day. The bulk of the people and cars were in the Carr Canyon picnic area 5.3 miles down the road. Are Easter picnics a tradition here? I never knew!

It got hot fast, though. Temperatures in Phoenix went above 90F, and it got that hot in Tucson as well. We hit 85F this afternoon, and my little garden is starting to suffer from that. Today was the hottest day so far this year for us. I wore a t-shirt and shorts today, and my neck is red. I hate being a redneck.

It was a pleasant Easter morning. I came home, had a late lunch, and pretty much mellowed out for the rest of the day. I learned of the death of CBS newscaster Mike Wallace today. He died in New Canaan, CT at age 93. He had the kind of nose for news that few today possess. It seems as if amateurs now run news websites, or there is more of a focus on celebrity or scandal news.

Anyway...Next weekend Alicia and I will get together again, maybe do a Ghostown tour of Gleason and a few other sites. That'll be another great photo-op! Alicia has been a great companion on these discovery hikes.