SteveA from the hiking club mentioned that walking this connector trail would be a nice moon walk. I decided to check the trail out this afternoon with Sadie, who hadn't had her solo hike with me this week. I parked the truck at the trail head parking lot off Cherokee Road and headed in a southwesterly direction. This is a single track that follows a dry but shallow drainage. Tall grass cover this area, with mostly dead mesquite trees dotting the landscape. Tire tracks revealed this is a popular mountain bike trail. Two cyclists and a lone hiker with dog came the opposite direction.
The view into Garden Canyon is lovely from this trail. The trail was originally built with aid from the city, and with help of the Huachuca Hiking Club volunteers. The trail was built to connect to the Perimeter Trail on Fort Huachuca, but access to the fort is now restricted to military-affiliated personnel. A fresh strand of concertina wire now block any public access.
The Garden Canyon connector trail is just a little over a mile long. It then follows the fence line of the post for almost a straight line into the Brown Canyon Ranch house. I had never hiked this in all the years living here. The trail lies low here with nearby slopes blocking the eastern horizon, so there is no direct view east of the Mule mountains from behind which the moon rises.
The sun was getting low once I got to the Brown Canyon ranch area. This is all too familiar area, though. I hiked into the canyon for a half mile, then started that short ascent to the trail head, from which one has spectacular views into the valley. The moon rise here would be nice. Sadie was off leash here as we then descended down, stopping at the two oaks with the three pet memorials underneath, and then circling back to the ranch house. I took the wrong trail back (I didn't go far enough around on the 1-mile Nature Loop at the house), so I missed the correct trail back. I knew I wasn't on the right trail because I was farther away from the military post than I should have been, as the aerostat was also farther away. But I knew the area I was in. What I did miscalculate was how far off in direction I was going.
The sky burst into pastel colors at sun set and I was walking due east. The homes around me were rather stately. It had been years since I had been in this area; perhaps the last time was when I did a local 5km run with the Thunder Mountain Running club one Thanksgiving. The homes lie on 4-acre lots, many of them lack fences. It's almost a sin to make any noise here, but the neighborhood dogs took care of that.
I was walking on Pocho Trail eastward and I knew I needed to be more northward, so I turned north on Whitewing Road, then east again on Yaqui Road which has a 35mph speed limit and no sidewalks here. Not good. Traffic makes Sadie nervous. I should have turned north on Calle Encina as a shorter spur trail would have gotten me back on the Garden Canyon connector trail. Daylight was waning, though, and I bit the bullet and stayed on pavement.
I ended up walking 7.65 miles and got back to the truck at 6:30pm. It was a nice walk and I got to see the wealthy part of Sierra Vista. Even with that wrong turn off the Nature Loop near the ranch house, I still got a nice walk in with Sadie and got to experience another beautiful sun set. The connector trail continues on another mile east from where I was parked. I want to check out the trail head there.
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