West Hunter Canyon

It's finally warming up here, but the sky is still overcast and the morning temperatures still in the 40s.  For the next two days I'm working at the "night school" and have my mornings off.  That's just enough time for short hikes in the foothills.  Today I chose West Hunter Canyon and the old Girl Scout trail to an old homestead (washed away in the 2011 floods).  The peaks again were shrouded, but autumn colors were visible just below the fog.  The West Hunter Canyon trail has been abandoned by the forest service.  The trail remains, albeit badly rutted, and is a long enough hike for a morning workout, with pleasant views facing east and the San Pedro Valley.  The round-trip hike is two miles long.

I didn't get started until just passed 9am.  I let the dogs out once we were parked and all four bolted out.  They were in heaven!  This is the highlight of the day for them, running around with no one else around.  Indeed I was all alone, hiking under the cool fog, but that fog also diffused any light so that the trees' colors were not very vibrant.

The first mile is on the old trail.  This old trail s easy to follow and ends at the old homestead site high in the canyon. Red maple grow in the steep upper canyon.  They were already red, which contrasts well with the yellows and orange around the trees.

I hadn't been here all year.  The upper canyon suffered badly from our 2011 fire.  Much of the thick canopy is now gone; one has to hike higher up a social trail used by illegal border crossers to get into the thick canopy.  The social trail is another .2 miles up the steep hillside and then gets too hard to follow, among the thicket and prickly shrubs.  I turned around at the same general area, just past an old snag with weather-worn Mexican blankets draped over a branch.

This is not an area to get injured.  The steep slope, the remote location and the lack of any trail would make a search and rescue operation very difficult.  So I always enter this area with great caution.  The rocky creek bed is parallel to the trail here, where more colorful trees are now in autumn bloom.  Today, though, I stayed away from the creek where the red maples are.  I turned around and went back down the old trail, finishing up a short loop below the car and out of the fog.  It seemed as if the fog even dropped lower!

The nice thing about cold, wet weather is that one doesn't have to worry about snakes.  Today's hike tired everyone out, even me, and I was able to sit in a classroom without much fidgeting.

I hope to get back to this short trail under more sunny conditions and before the leaves all drop.  There's great opportunity here for some spectacular macrophotography.