San Pedro House Loop, Brown Canyon sunset hike

Nina posted a last-minute meetup hike around the San Pedro House at 8am.  Since I was only working a half-day, I jumped on the opportunity to meet with her and walk the trails here before my shift.  It's a 25-minute drive to the San Pedro House on SR90 from my house.  I got there at 8:07 (knowing Nina would be late) and she arrived at 8:10am.

We had two hours to saunter around the trails, enjoying the morning light and the birds.  I did not take any dogs this time as this is a popular birding area and I didn't want to bother birders with my dogs.  That was a wise decision. Nina commented that she can't remember ever hiking with me without a dog by my side. While dogs are allowed here, they must be leashed around the house.  I kept my dogs at home so that I wouldn't need to drive back home again before arriving at the school, saving 50 minutes and 30 miles.

We had no route planned.  Nina had a map and I suggested we stay in the trees closest to the river where the birds are.  We lucked out.  Not only did a maintenance man show us an owl in the cottonwood tree by the house, we also saw the red-bellied Vermillion Flycatcher.  The first time I saw this pretty bird was on this trail years ago. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Vermilion_Flycatcher/id  I didn't have a good camera to capture its beauty.

The river was very calm this morning as the early sun shined through the trees.  Birds were chirping and twittering in the branches, hidden from site.  The cool shade felt good.  Why do I not come by here more often?  We met a family from Kansas who moved here one by one after the adult daughter moved here for a job.  Her mother and brother joined her and all hike the three-mile loop every morning.

The trail map visitors can pick up at the San Pedro House is not very detailed.  We hiked a few loops twice trying to figure out where to go.  We really didn't care as it was calming just being here.  There were several others enjoying the trails, cameras in hand.  Get away from the cool shade and out on the open trail, though, and it's less pleasant.

Kingfisher pond and the giant cottonwood are the charms of this loop hike. The tree has a symmetrical canopy unlike most trees in the area.  We walked this entire pond, took photos, laughed at our repeated loop around the water.  Nina brought along a cardboard figurine she named "Flat Stanley," mailed to her from Texas from family members.  Flat Stanley will be accompanying her on all the hikes for the next month.  Nina will photograph all his journeys with Nina for a month before he gets mailed back to Texas.

We hiked north along the river, went under the SR90 overpass, spotted a new cross marking a gravesite I'm thinking is to commemorate a border crosser found dead here.  A volunteer organization has been placing crosses along the border to mark the deaths of migrants in Cochise County. I found my first such cross several months ago in Lutz Canyon.  The Forest Service frowns on religious monuments on public land (that hasn't stopped the crosses from popping up around here) but this land is managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Nina had a dentist appointment and needed to be done around 10am.  That gave us 3.5 miles together.    We were done shortly after 10am.  What a lovely walk this was, walking at a leisurely pace, chatting and enjoying the sounds.

* * *

I had a pleasant afternoon at the school, got home at 4:15pm and hosted another sunset hike in Brown Canyon.  This time I brought Sadie and Zeke along.  AJ was there and two new gals, Madelaine and Cindy, both registered nurses from Delaware and Michigan showed up.  Madelaine and Cindy were behind AJ and me and I slowed down to allow the gals to catch up with us, but at one point Madelaine bluntly told me, loud enough for everyone to hear, that "I'm going to be very honest, I don't think I'll be coming back again!" because the pace was too fast for her.  She was expecting a more leisurely walk where we would stop, photograph the sites, and chat.  This was the first time anyone has told me I hiked too fast.  I was a bit taken back by that.  I didn't advertise the hike as a leisure walk and mentioned in the write-up that I like to maintain a 22-minute-mile pace.

The gals did relax and we slowed down once we got to the 2.5-mile spot at the water trough.  From here it's all downhill back to the Brown canyon ranch house.  We chatted more spiritedly, AJ talked about his experience with atrial ventricular tachycardia he swears he developed after a tetanus shot, and together we enjoyed the waning daylight as we exited the canyon.  We had no clouds and thus no color scheme across the sky.  We could hear coyotes howling when we got to the ranch house.  The others saw two coyotes dart across the trail and they warned me to leash the dogs (which I did), but I never saw the coyotes.  The pond was calm.

We got back to our cars in 2:07 hours and departed amicably.  I don't think I'll be seeing the gals again.  I did enjoy our conversation once the pace slowed down some.

Both hikes totaled 8.96 miles.  I'm on a run!