Canelo Pass South

Hike Statistics:

   Distance:  11.64 miles (Garmin 600 GPS odometer).

   Elevation: 1565 ft. (4997’– 6033’).  2313 ft. accumulated elevation including all ups and downs.

   Hiking Time: 8:12 AM to 2:35 PM (6 hrs, 23 min)

  Calories: 1120

Drive:  42 miles via Elgin from Mustang Corners or 22 miles via Ft. Huachuca from Sierra Vista.

Weather: clear, breezy, temperatures in the 60s and 70s

Participants (7): Rod C (hike leader), Steve Sch, Kent R, Paul Ph, Me with Zeke and Sadie, Holly O, , Cole M. 

Hike Narrative by Rod C:

Steve Scheumann coordinated the carpool from Sierra Vista, and departed for the trailhead at 7:00 AM by driving through the Fort. The hike leader waited at Mustang Corners for possible hikers from St. David.  Departed Mustang Corners when no one showed up or phoned at 7:30 AM.  Apparently an email was sent, but this hiker did not see it until after the hike.  The hike leader used lead-footed driving techniques to arrive at trailhead by 8:05 AM. This hike was scheduled to do a section of the Arizona Trail not visited by the club since 1 January 2008.

Heading south from the Canelo Pass Trailhead, we saw a sign indicating it was 15 miles to Parker Canyon Lake.  We also encountered a bunch of empty water bottles stashed near the trailhead for thru-hikers.  Not sure why the empties were left here, but we assumed they would eventually be policed up.  Pat Scully, being absent in the Pacific Northwest, would have been the only person in the club who readily volunteered for “police call” details.  So the empties were just hung on the sign indicating the distance to Parker Canyon Lake to make it easier for whoever is responsible for policing these up to retrieve. 

The trail starts out relatively level for the first ¾ of a mile, and then climbs steeply over 500 feet to the first gate about 1.2 miles up the trail.  This hiker’s memory of the 2008 hike was foggy at best, so any information put out about this hike ended up not matching the ground truth we experienced this day.  The old Alzheimer’s joke about being able to laugh at the same joke because memory lapses was certainly evident today for this hiker. Just wait 8 years and the hike becomes a new experience. The next 1.3 miles of the trail contoured around hilltops before descending a gently sloping ridgeline to Middle Canyon, and topped out at 680 ft. above the parking area (according to a Casio watch altimeter).  Nice views of Meadow Valley to the west, the Mustangs to the north, and Canelo Hills all the way to Collins Canyon to the east.

Nine switchbacks and a descent of over 600 ft. brought us down to the Middle Canyon drainage after 3.4 miles of hiking.  In 2008, that was as far as we went.  The young whippersnappers in the group (Kent, Cole, Holly, and Connie) wanted to continue down the trail, so the hike leader suggested we hike another 2 miles to the Pauline Stock Tank near the road to Turkey Creek.  The single track trail became a two-track road at a blue salt lick bucket around the 4 mile mark. At the 4.5 mile mark, we found another salt lick container.  This hiker dubbed this portion of the hike as the “Salt Lick Road”.  Before the road descended into another drainage (Pauline Canyon) we met a AZT thru-hiker heading north from the Border.  This was his second day of the hike, and he was originally from Switzerland, but now living in Ohio.  His trail name was “Roadrunner”, and he was moving along pretty good.  We asked him to say Hi to the two thru-hikers we had met in Scotia Canyon 2 days prior on our Arizona Trail work event when he caught up to them.  He mentioned the difficulties of getting to the start of the trail from the Benson Greyhound bus stop, but he was successful in his hitch hiking efforts  - he didn’t have to call Bernie for a ride.  The Arizona Trail was busy this time of the year.

We arrived at Pauline Stock Tank around 11:30 AM for lunch after 5.75 miles of hiking.  The stock tank was not very pleasant to be near because it smelled like cow piss according to Connie.  The dogs went swimming anyway. The group headed back around noon, and the whippersnappers and Steve disappeared quickly, and the lollygaggers (Rod and Paul) took their time returning back to the parking lot arriving a good 45 minutes after the whippersnappers arrived back at the trailhead. Observed lots of vehicles in the parking lot that afternoon, though.  We were not the only hikers using the trailhead today.