The summer rains are long gone and it is hot – too hot for low-on-the-mountain Soldier Trail I guess and, just after the overlook of Soldier Canyon, the easy access to the water and carved rock are too tempting, my turn around point on today’s (short) hike.
Today what really catches my attention is the beautiful ‘false fall’ leaves of the Desert Cotton (Gossypium thurberi) – stunning beautiful fall colors dotting the hillside, a cruel false signal of fall with so many hot days still to come…
The flowers on the Meadow Trail are fading a bit, ferns on the Mt. Lemmon Trail are starting to brown and small drainages crossing the Wilderness of Rocks Trail are beginning to go dry – the summer rains are gone, but summer temperatures are still very much here – a nice time to be at the top of the mountain.
Up to the junction with the Brush Corral Shortcut Trail there is no evidence of the Burro Fire on the Upper Brush Corral Trail – and even below the junction it takes some time to enter areas touched by the fire. But as you get closer to ridge where the Brush Corral Trail devolves into an off-trail route areas burned in the fire start to appear.
Lower on the trail the impact of the burn is more severe but, somehow, maybe because some of this area burned in the 2002 Bullock Fire, the changes in this area don’t seem as shocking as on the top of Guthrie Mountain. The Upper Brush Corral Trail down into the more obscure part of the trail below the Brush Corral Shortcut Trail junction is definitely an interesting way to get a first hand look at the impact of the Burro Fire.
On the Green Mountain Trail it was hard to tell what I would find – the Green Mountain Trail was untouched by the Burro Fire, but not far from Bear Saddle on the Guthrie Mountain Trail the impact of the Burro Fire became obvious.
On the ridge out to the short rocky climb before the summit the trees scorched by the fire seemed almost like strange fall colors – but the summit must have burned hotter, here the trees have been transformed into black sticks.
With the trees and brush largely cleared by the fire it is now easy to wander down from the summit for more photos – other areas burned in the Burro Fire attract my attention today – the slopes of Evans mountain and Burro Creek are distinctly brown.
Guthrie Mountain is still very much worth visiting – I was a bit stunned at first by the new look of the summit, but the burned slopes are already spouting new growth and it will be interesting to see what happens as the area comes back to life.