Ellen and I got together at 7am to drive to the Santa Rita's Gardner Canyon Road on the eastern side of this mountain range. This is a fee-free area and also 30 minutes shorter than driving to Madera Canyon on the western side. The downside is that this 14-mile loop hike is steep and a real butt kicker. We just didn't know that at the time.
The drive to this little-used trailhead took just over an hour. The turn-off to the forest road is north of the cattle town of Sonoita off AZ83. This is a popular hunting/ATV area and we saw several hunting parties camped out along the primitive sites along the way. The trailhead is 11 miles west (straight) on Gardner Canyon Road, a wide but badly-rutted forest road. It felt like an old washboard driving on that road!
A large coyote crossed the road, ran up a hill and turned back to look at us as we drove by.
It had been several years since I had explored this area. I'm not sure why it's been so long since my last visit; it's very pretty here and one can get lost in many of the low canyons. I dread the day Rosemont mine wants to destroy this area with its $1.2-million mine construction nearby.
We made it to the remodeled trailhead and started the hike at 8:17am, still cool and dark from the shade. One large pick-up was already at the small trailhead parking lot, but we didn't see anyone else. The starting elevation here is 6200'.
I had been here a few years ago with three dogs to explore the Garner Canyon trail, but didn't make it past the Walker Basin road turn-off a mile uphill. The first thing I noticed today was the lack of water in the creek bed. In my previous times to the Santa Ritas, Cave Creek was always flowing. Today the creek bed was mostly dry. That didn't bode too well, although I brought plenty of water for the dogs and me.
From the Cave Creek trailhead we took the .4-mile Link Trail to Gardner Canyon, which switch-backed to the gated trail head for Gardner canyon, an old mining trail on a low ridgeline that's now mostly exposed. This would be a very hot summer hike. This wide trail then follows the creek for most of the first mile, but even here water was not plentiful. What little water there was was stagnant and contained algae.
We hear a distant hunter in Temporal Gulch, the canyon south of where we were.
Sadie and Minnie stayed close, with Minnie always up front while Sadie stayed by my side. We were alone on this trail. Minnnie sniffed everything and Sadie followed.
The first 1.2 mile (it seems longer than that!) to Walker Basin is relatively easy. But just before the open area of the Walker Basin turn-off, the lower burn area becomes visible. The Florida fire of 2005 decimated the trees here. The old Douglas fir remain as broken-off charred stubs in the sky, reminding people of the once-lush forest here. New pines are anywhere from 2-4 feet tall, and some are very close together. Many of these young trees will require culling down as they mature as they are too close to one another. There are also many blow-downs that will perhaps never be removed since so few people hike up Mount Wrightson from this direction. The new green stands out in comparison to the old burned trees, something I hope to see happen in Miller Canyon in a few years.
An old rusty metal sign directed us uphill. All the directional signs are in metal here, which helps the hikers as wooden signs would have been destroyed here. I don't think the Forst Service uses metal signs anymore, though.
The trail got steeper past the Walker Basin area. I had to stop to rest a few times and the dogs looked tired and thirsty. Ellen also said she was exhausted and gladly rested. The burn area got more intense and more severe the closer we made it to the Super Trail below Mount Wrightson, and we think the sun reflected off the many rocks nearby making the heat more intense. We made it to the Super Trail by 11:30, over three hours since we started the hike. "That's a mile an hour!" said Ellen. Yikes.
A lone trail runner in purple tights passed us running downhill, but she was the only person we encountered until we made it to the Baldy Saddle, where we opted to eat lunch and rest some more. It was 12:30 and I debated whether we had time to bag the peak without losing daylight. I was tired, but meeting two young men, and soon thereafter another group of five people going uphill encouraged us to go ahead.
An older man had his 12-year-old Border Collie Happy with him, which got Minnie barking. I had to leash both dogs here for a while until Happy was out of visual range. Once we made it to the peak, though, a quick sniff-and-greet relaxed all the dogs and we were able to chat with everyone on the peak. Mike, the owner of Happy, brought his two Norwegian friends to bag the peak, Norwegians who were here at UA for research in human geography. Ellen took time out to gaze northward to see if she could spot the Cave Canyon trail. We learned later that that trail is not visible from the peak.
The sky now was looking overcast from the Southeast. There was no wind at the top. In fact, it was much warmer today than yesterday hiking up Carr Peak. We descended at 1:30 (!) knowing that the overcast sky was not going to clear up anymore and we had to focus on getting back to our car before sunset. We never saw the blue sky again today.
We made it back down to the Baldy Saddle just before 3pm. The next loop trail was the Cave Canyon trail, which appeared daunting because it starts uphill around a lesser peak north of Wrightson. I had never been on this trail and the metal sign wasn't clear as the the name of the trail. "Cave Canyon" and "Florida Saddle" were both on the sign without any mileage. I should have read up on this trail before leading this one with Ellen. What if we missed a turn-off? We trekked on anyway. I wanted to explore this trail finally.
It was clear this was not a very-used trail. The single track faded in parts. I kept look-out for any turn-offs leading downhill.
Once we sumitted the lesser peak more vistas to the north and northwest opened up. This was a lush, northerly trail only partially burned from the Florida fire. A thin layer of snow covered the trails. The dogs were energized here. But the trail didn't look familiar and I focused on the general area of where our truck was in Cave Canyon. It still looked so far away. My last time on this trail was in late 2008 with Sammy and Sara, hiking the other direction but turning around before the steep ascent because the dogs were tired. It turns out that turn-around was a lot lower than I thought.
Cave Canyon is a steep canyon. We were lucky we went up Wrightson via the Gardner Canyon and came down Cave Canyon trail. Both are steep but Cave Canyon seems steeper and more unstable in the upper region, although there are fewer blow-downs here.
Once we found the turn-off for the lower Cave Canyon trail, I quickly remembered the ridge line and the creek bed, but even here water was lacking. Once we were two miles from the trailhead where the trail levels off, what was once a wide mining trail shrouded with oaks, manzanitas and a few sycamores had overgrown into a single track. This area suffered massive landslides into the creek the year of the Florida fire, changing the flow of the creek here.
"I think I was the last person on this trail four years ago!" I told Ellen. By now we were losing light fast. It was past 5pm and what saved us was the open area around the creek. We could tell some of the trees were in fall color but it was too dark to photograph the splendor.
We made it back to the truck at 5:50pm. Both dogs could barely jump into the backseat. I had to help Minnie. This was Minnie's first long-distance hike and she did great considering she got no train-up. She went from a usual 6-mile hike to a 14-mile hike.
Both dogs napped quietly on the drive home and lacked all energy. I'm sure they were glad to be back on terra firma; both were rewarded with an extra can of dog food to replenish their bodies. My shoulders were sore from the heavy backpack and I didn't stay up much later, either.
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This is a hike that must be done by any avid hiker, but I doubt I'll be doing it any time soon. I'm glad now I never led this hike with the hiking club as no one would have joined me. This would be a great training hike for the Grand Canyon, though. Hiking up Mt Wrightson via Madera Canyon is still the more scenic and cooler option.
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