Garden Canyon Road

Rod emailed all hiking club members earlier this week that Garden Canyon on Fort Huachuca is now open to hikers. It had been closed for over a year after last year's monsoon floodings. Fall foliage is now in its prime. I took today to hike there to see the improvements done on the road this past year. I hadn't been up the road since October 2014.

I drove into town to drop off Pat's hiking poles at the 8am meeting place. Everyone else was going to Sonoita Creek but I wanted to recon Garden Canyon. This gave me some solitude and the opportunity to finally push myself at my own pace. I ended up hiking 11.4 miles in 4:10 hours. Sadie and Zeke were today's hiking dogs and they enjoyed the romp. Both did very well today.

I started my hike at 8:35pm. It was still very chilly in the shaded canyon. Two other full-size pick-ups were already at the gate parking area (most likely hunters). It's a mile on pavement before the pavement gives way and the dirt road begins. A sign warns of bear habitat and to keep dogs on leashes. Like I paid attention to that. (Bears will avoid dogs off leash and will run away). The dogs never showed any indications that they smelled bear. I didn't see any scat until I hit the Crest Trail at mile 5, 1:41 hours from the start.

The picnic areas look so abandoned, like Chernobyl after the blast. The playgrounds are weeded over. It doesn't look very welcoming. The bathrooms are locked, too. The fall foliage in the sun, though, is quite pretty.

I was chilled for most of the walk up the road as the sun didn't come over the hills until two hours later. The repair work on the road is impressive. All new culverts, reinforced rock walls, and deeper ditches off the road. Water flowed for the first four miles.

The only people I saw were two mountain bikers and a hunter who'd been at his spot since 0530 hours today. He saw no wildlife, either, despite the plentiful water.

I hiked at a steady pace, stopping only to photograph or investigate something. I took two five-minute water breaks but kept on walking. I wanted to get back home at a reasonable time today. The dogs had plenty of water to drink from. There was only one two-mile stretch that was dry and that was on the Crest Trail.

I've been up Garden Canyon many times, but never before have I hiked to its terminus. I usually stayed near the old boy scout hut area and returned. But this time I wanted to see where it ends. It ends at Gate 2, five miles up the road, which then falls back on the other side of the ridgeline. A barbed wire divides the fort boundary with national forest land. The Crest Trail then intersects here at a "T" and I took the "T" going south and uphill. The Crest Trail then narrows into an overgrown singletrack, shaded by oaks and agaves. The meadow area of Garden Canyon looks so expansive here. I can now understand why so much wildlife hangs out here, because it's mostly level ground with shade and water.

At the two-hour mark I came to a fire break and views into Mexico. I could see Parker Canyon Lake and Sonora's northern mountains. Although I've seen the western slopes of the Huachucas many times, I had never seen it from Garden Canyon. The canyon really is more of a pass across the mountain range. No wonder so many Mexicans come over via this route! (Or at least they used to; surveillance has increased quite a bit since 2008). Trash, however, was minimal. I did find a Leatherman-Wingman here, though, that didn't look like it had been there for long.

The Crest Trail dips down for about 50 yards, then levels out through an old road covered in tall Lovegrass. Old signs on the national forest sign remind trespassers that anyone entering the post is subject to search by military police, as per a 1951 regulation. The signs look as old as the regulations!