Brush Corral – Cedar Spring, Georges Spring, Pearsons Spring – 4/30/2017

A view of the Santa Catalina Mountains from FR4407 Brush Corral Road. April 2017.
A view of the Santa Catalina Mountains from FR4407 Brush Corral Road. April 2017.

Back to the Brush Corral area! Unlike my last trip into the area the goal wasn’t a long hike on the Brush Corral Trail – but instead just a chance to explore a little.

There are some great views from Brush Corral Road (FR4407) – the edge to edge view (above) of the Santa Catalina Mountains is amazing – familiar peaks are labeled below in a reference image from PeakFinder.org (note that this is showing the USGS Guthrie Mountain rather than the peak at the end of the Brush Corral - Cedar Spring, Georges Spring, Pearsons Spring - 4/30/2017).

A view from the PeakFinder web application - www.peakfinder.org - showing the peaks in the panorama above. May 2017.
A view from the PeakFinder web applicationshowing the peaks in the panorama above. May 2017.

Hopeful curiosity and extreme skepticism and his a fair description of how I feel about blue marks on the maps of Southern Arizona. The area south of Evans Mountain down to Buehman Canyon has 11 springs marked on the map – an interesting concentration, I wonder how many of them still flow…

The area between Evans Mountain and Buehman Canyon has 11 marked springs. May 2017.
The area between Evans Mountain and Buehman Canyon has 11 marked springs. May 2017.

From a ridge-top camp west of Brush Corral Road I drop down into a a dry wash, crawl under barbed wire fence at the forest boundary and quickly find a dry tank where Cedar Springs is marked on the map. Pipes run up canyon from the tank, but there is no sign of water where they seem to end.

Cedar Spring Tank - dry... April 2017.
Cedar Spring Tank – dry… April 2017.
Mesquite Flat, North of the Brush Corral Trailhead. April 2017.
Mesquite Flat, North of the Brush Corral Trailhead. April 2017.

Around Mesquite Flat and over to the Georges Spring area – after finding Cedar Spring dry the number of pools of water in the area surprised me!

A beautiful pool in the Georges Spring area. April 2017.
A beautiful pool in the Georges Spring area. April 2017.

From Georges Spring it was a short walk to Pearsons Spring – in its small side canyon the only sign of water was a single, small depression with damp sand at the bottom. Returning to the canyon just west of the Brush Corral Trailhead I don’t have to walk very far before both cows and small pools of water appeared in the canyon bottom. It looks like there was quite a bit more water in the canyon earlier in the year. The canyon merges seamlessly into Buehman Canyon a short distance above the Brush Corral Trailhead – from there it doesn’t take long to loop back to the start of my hike.

Water in the canyon just west of the Brush Corral Trailhead. April 2017.
Water and cow manure in the canyon just west of the Brush Corral Trailhead. April 2017.

Red Ridge, Catalina Camp, Oracle Ridge Trail Loop – 4/16/2017 and 4/19/2017

Oracle Ridge and Rice Peak from the Red Ridge Trail - the Catalina Camp Trail can be seen descending from Oracle Ridge towards its junction with the Red Ridge Trail. April 2017.
Oracle Ridge and Rice Peak from the Red Ridge Trail – the Catalina Camp Trail can be seen descending from Oracle Ridge towards its junction with the Red Ridge Trail. April 2017.

The Red Ridge Trail, Catalina Camp and Oracle Ridge Trail loop is one of my favorite hikes – and one of my favorites to recommend. I was lucky this month to be able to do the loop twice – once in each direction – and lucky to do it with many different friends who, I think, enjoyed seeing this area of the mountains.

1924, June 29, p. 13 – from the Arizona Daily Star:

The forest service is at present working on the construction of two very interesting trails … Red Ridge trail begins near the main ridge of the Catalinas that the highway crosses, and goes, as the name implies, over the ridges toward Oracle.

I wonder what the trail would have been like then – the stunning views of the Reef of Rock would be the same and with fewer visitors to the mountain in those days the trail was probably, like today, not heavily used. In the 1920s the top of the trail must have been covered in trees and it may have been impressively quiet – today the top of the ridge is largely open, cleared by the 2003 Aspen Fire, and noise from the General Hitchcock Highway is notable (the General Hitchcock Highway, not yet built in the 1920s, is larger, busier and faster than the ‘highway’ referred to in the quote above).

A Mariposa Lilly along the Red Ridge Trail. April 2017.
A Mariposa Lilly along the Red Ridge Trail – I wonder if they would have bloomed here when the trail was first constructed? April 2017.

A steep descent – past the edge of the Aspen Fire and into the oaks – takes you to the East Fork of the Canada del Oro. Water flows in this drainage most of the year, always a great spot to stop and enjoy.

A spider hunting over the East Fork of the Canada del Oro. April 2017.
A spider hunting over the water in the East Fork of the Canada del Oro. April 2017.

The Red Ridge Trail crosses the East Fork of the CDO and quickly reaches a junction with the Catalina Camp Trail. The Red Ridge Trail continues west, chasing the East Fork down to the Canada del Oro – but this loop turns east onto the Catalina Camp Trail. The Catalina Camp Trail used to be the route of the Arizona Trail as it climbed out of the CDO and up to Oracle Ridge – today the AZT takes a kinder and more practical route straight onto the Oracle Ridge Trail from Summerhaven.

The reason I love this loop is the variety. Red Ridge is a wild place, violently burned in the Aspen Fire, with just a hint of the remoteness that some of the more distant sky islands offer. The Catalina Camp Trail is something altogether different – a few minutes from the junction buildings come into view – the address above one of the doors reads ‘One Park Place’.

A moon near the 1 Park Place shack. April 2017.
A moon on the old outhouse near 1 Park Place. April 2017.

These buildings seem out of place, but they are part of the long history of mining in the Santa Catalina Mountains that predates the construction of the Red Ridge Trail by many years – if you know where to look you can see old equipment rusting back into the earth, disappearing remains of old mining operations.

At Dan Saddle the Catalina Camp and Oracle Ridge Trails meet and this loop joins the current route of the Arizona Trail. The Oracle Ridge Trail between Dan Saddle and the Oracle Ridge Trailhead routes you on and off an old road with views of Marble Peak (a long-time mining area). This area has none of the wildness of Red Ridge – but what it adds to this loop is views of east side of the Santa Catalina Mountains and the San Pedro River Valley – a surprisingly remote area when you consider how close it seems on a map. If you travel out to the east side of the Santa Catalina Mountains it is rare to see other hikers these days – with good reason I suppose, it is an hour (or more) drive from Tucson to reach the start of the long 4wd roads that access the few existing trailheads. The area probably saw more use before the 2003 Bullock fire when the Davis Spring and Brush Corral Trails could still be followed down into the area – now those trails are just off-trail routes…

Dana and Traci on the Oracle Ridge Trail. April 2017.
Dana and Traci taking a break and enjoying the view on the Oracle Ridge Trail. April 2017.

The Oracle Ridge Trailhead and Red Ridge Trailhead are close enough together that you can walk between them to start, or complete, the loop. Perhaps under-emphasized in the description above is that in addition to being about 9 miles long the loop has around 2800′ of elevation loss and gain, definitely worth considering before committing to this loop!

Brush Corral – 4/23/2017

At the junction of the Brush Corral and Green Mountain Trails. April 2017.
At the junction of the Brush Corral and Green Mountain Trails. April 2017.

In the early 20th century the Brush Corral area on the east side of the Santa Catalina Mountains featured a Ranger Station with a 3 room adobe building and a telephone connection up to Mount Lemmon. Today the area is just another indistinct flat along Buehman Canyon… Forest Road 4407 (Brush Corral Road) still allows high-clearance access into the area from Redington Road near the San Pedro River – but I would guess that the area saw more visitors in the the 1910s/1920s than it sees today.

I am not sure when the Forest Service began using Brush Corral on the east side of the Santa Catalina Mountains. It is absent from the 1904 Tucson topographic map and with a number of ranches and other Ranger Stations noted its omission seems notable. Jim Westfall – hired by the Forest Service in 1906 – and his wife Leeta were early residents, spending winters at Brush Corral after working on the mountain during the spring, summer and fall. Newspaper articles from 1911 and 1912 mention Brush Corral because it was on the route of a phone line being built from Tucson to Soldier Camp, down to Brush Corral and south to the Spud Rock Ranger Station in the Rincons. In a 1964 Arizona Daily Star article by Pete Cowgill Gilbert Sykes, a Forest Service employee after WWI, says “Brush Corral was used more as a camp with a guard stationed there two or three months of the year. The guard would work on grazing permits, timber sales and, of course, watch out for fires. But it was not a permanent ranger station like the one located, but not now used either, at Oracle”. The same article mentions that the cabin – possibly built about 1913 – was sold around 1925 and the timber removed.

Remains of the phoneline from the 1910s that came up from Tucson and over to the Brush Corral Ranger Station. April 2017.
Remains of the phoneline from the 1910s that came up from Tucson and over to the Brush Corral Ranger Station. April 2017.

Our ride dropped us at the Upper Green Mountain Trailhead, our destination was a vehicle we had dropped on FR4407 the previous day – it had been hours of driving to drop a vehicle, but it made our hike much simpler – no need to worry about the time needed to climb back up the mountain, carry overnight gear or make an uncomfortably hot walk out on Redington Road.

The Brush Corral Trail was described in the first three editions of the [GuideYellowBook/] as “fair to very poor” and, after extensive work by the Southern Arizona Hiking Club in the late 1980s, was upgraded to “fair to good” in the 1990s. But those descriptions are pre-2002-Bulllock Fire… There are two notable posts online about this trail from after the Bullock Fire – Scott Morris’s ‘Brush Corral Epic’ from 2004 and Sirena Dufault’s ‘Brush Corral Trail’ from 2010. We knew from those posts, and a hike I made in 2013, that it would probably be difficult, or  impossible, to find all of the trail – our planning left a comfortable amount of time for traveling at an off-trail-didn’t-pick-the-best-way-thru-the-manzanita-are-we-on-the-right-ridge kind of pace…

Running an upper section of the trail - the Brush Corral Trail is easy to follow and in decent shape down the junction with the Brush Corral Shortcut Trail. April 2017.
Running an upper section of the trail – the Brush Corral Trail is easy to follow and in decent shape down the junction with the Brush Corral Shortcut Trail. April 2017.

We quickly reached the Brush Corral Trail’s junction with the Green Mountain Trail and started the descent to the junction with the Brush Corral Shortcut Trail – this section of trail is still in decent condition and is easy to follow. Below the junction with the Brush Corral Shortcut Trail the trail immediately becomes overgrown and interrupted by fallen trees, but it was still easy to follow until – at an old metal trail marker – the trail emerged from the trees and became an off-trail ‘route’.

A metal trail marker - it was encouraging to see this, but beyond this point the 'trail' was distinctly harder to find. April 2017.
A metal trail marker – it was encouraging to see this, but beyond this point the ‘trail’ was distinctly harder to find. April 2017.
Looking down on the ridges that the Brush Corral Route follows. April 2017.
Looking down on the ridges that the Brush Corral Route follows. April 2017.

We found stretches of the old trail, and cairns sometimes helped us stay on course – but in sections we just wandered across the ridges, perhaps we could have found more of the old trail but the terrain was not particularly difficult off-trail walking and rather than hunt for the old track it seemed more interesting to just keep moving forward.

A rather alarming note next to a small cairn - if anyone knows the story on this I would love to hear it... April 2017.
A rather alarming note – ‘Jim – 1PM’ – next to a small cairn – if anyone knows the story on this I would love to hear it… April 2017.

The biggest surprise of the hike may have been finding water when we crossed a small canyon – we had planned on the route being dry and it was nice surprise to find water to soak my shirt and hat with – we were thousands of feet lower than when we started and it was getting hot, the edge of the season for this part of the mountain I think.

Water in a canyon along the Brush Corral Trail. April 2017.
Water in a canyon along the Brush Corral Trail. April 2017.
An obvious section of trail across a grassy ridge - the brown carsonite post in the distance marks the lower part of the trail. April 2017.
An obvious section of trail across a grassy ridge – brown carsonite posts like the one at the top of this hill mark the lower part of the trail. April 2017.

From the crossing we quickly found the brown trail markers mentioned in other reports and the trail became relatively easy to follow thru the grass and across the ridges. We took advantage of the good trail and ran the final mile+ down to the Brush Corral site before making the hike up the road back to our ride home.

The trail close to the trailhead is in decent shape - brown carsonite posts mark the way. April 2017.
Richard running the bottom section of the trail – Mount Bigelow in the background – the trail close to the trailhead is in decent shape – brown carsonite posts mark the way. April 2017.
FR4407 coming to an end at the Brush Corral area. April 2017.
FR4407 coming to an end at the Brush Corral area. April 2017.

Newspaper articles that reference the Brush Corral Trail that I used for this post:

  • Arizona Daily Star, 8/24/1911, p. 5, Forestry Will Have Its Own Telephones
  • Arizona Daily Star, 10/10/1912, p. 8, Brevities
  • Arizona Daily Star, 11/6/1912, p. 8, Telephones Arrive For Mt. Lemmon Line
  • Arizona Daily Star, 12/6/1912, p. 8, Government Installs New Telephones
  • Arizona Daily Star, 3/22/1964, p 55, Pete Cowgill, Hike Up To Brush Corrall Is For Experienced Hikers
  • Arizona Daily Star, 11/8/1984, p. 51, Pete Cowgill, Old Ranger Station is Just a Memory
  • Arizona Daily Star, 11/17, 1989, p. 41, Pete Cowgill, Hiking club dug in for Brush Corral Trail

 

Fire, Fire, Fire, Horses, Tram – 4/22/2017

Sunset from the Pontatoc Canyon Trail. March 2017.
Sunset from the Pontatoc Canyon Trail. March 2017.

The Molino Fire started on April 4th in the Molino Basin area – the fire was quickly contained and limited to 50 acres. The Forest Service has suggested that the fire was caused by recreational shooting and is seeking information on a ‘person of interest’  – “a tall, white man of husky build wearing a light-colored hat, gray shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes. Witnesses saw him move toward a forest green, mid-1990s Ford Explorer parked in the area.” If you have any information please report it to the Coronado National Forest Supervisor’s Office at (520) 388-8300.

The Shovel fire started on April 8th near the summit of the mountain and was quickly extinguished.

Redington Road was temporarily closed due to a fire near Milepost 6. 

With 3 fires noted above it probably goes without saying the there is a notable wildfire danger this year and there have been several recent news articles about the subject: Wildfire Risk Goes Beyond Hottest Months, Officials Say – Arizona Public Media, State forester: Abundant grass could spell busy fire season in Southern Arizona – Arizona Daily Star, Tinder-dry vegetation sets the stage for wildfires in Catalina Mountains north of Tucson – Arizona Daily Star

Hikers: Commercial horseback rides are damaging popular Oro Valley trail – Arizona Daily Star: Last month I mentioned a letter in the Arizona Daily Star that was critical of the condition of the Linda Vista Trails since the Tucson El Conquistador Golf & Tennis Resort began offering guided horseback rides on the trails about 6 months ago. There is now a petition that has been given to the Forest Service asking that the renewal of their permit for commercial use of the trails be denied. The Forest Service commented that “an evaluation of the condition of the trail will be completed before a decision is made on renewal of the use permit in May” and a representative from the El Conquistador said that “said the guides leading the rides “want to make sure (the trail) looks good for anybody who visits the area. From a cleanup standpoint, they do quite a lot of cleanup.”

April Snow!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mt. Lemmon snow, no foolin’ – KVOA.com

In mid-March a notable amount of tree fall caused damage at the Boy and Girl Scout Camps and kept several roads closed while trees were cleared. Treefalls in Catalinas close roads, strike Scout buildings – Arizona Daily Star

Trail reports on the Pontatoc Canyon Trail and La Milagrosa Trail – Hittin’ the Trails 4 You: Pontatoc Canyon Trail – KVOA.com, Find a miraculous experience on this trail – Arizona Daily Star

The Coronado National Forest continues to hold meetings about the budget gap they are facing and the restructuring of the Developed Recreation Program – see this page for more informationNational Forest ask for input on funding gap – Green Valley News, Coronado National Forest officials considering budget cuts – KVOA.com, CNF seeks input on changes at recreation areas – Nogales International.

Community members continue to push for improvements to the Sabino Canyon Tram including electric vehicles, credit card payments and an alternative to the current loud narration – an article by Tim Stellar for the Arizona Daily Star contains a number of interesting details including information from an interview with Sabino Canyon Tours owner Donn Ricketts, well worth reading – Pressure increases to get new Sabino tram operator | Latest Tim Steller columns | tucson.com – Arizona Daily Star, Letter: Sabino Canyon needs a new tram – Arizona Daily Star

Arizona Daily Star weekly outdoor ‘Things to Do’:

Rescues from the Pima Canyon near the trailhead, near Mount Kimball and from the Butterfly Trail:

Rescues/Accidents/Incidents including information from the SARCI Newsletter:

  • 3/4/2017 Pima Canyon Trail: Exhausted hiker helped out
  • 3/6/2017 Pima Canyon Trail: Ankle injury results in a carry out
  • 3/10/2017 Bug Spring Trail: Head Injury
  • 3/10/2017 Seven Falls Trail: Exhausted hiker – walked and then ridden out by horse
  • 3/11/2017 Romero Canyon Trail: 4 hikers assisted out
  • 3/11/2017 Aspen Trail: Lost hikers found and assisted out
  • 3/11/2017 Sycamore Canyon: A group of 8 descending the canyon – they separated into several groups – 1 hiker was unable to follow the Sycamore Reservoir Trail and turned up Bear Canyon (found and helped) – three exhausted hikers were given water/food and gear to spend the night and then short-hauled out the next day.
  • 3/12/2017 Seven Falls: Injury results in a short-haul out
  • 3/13/2017 Bear Canyon: Ankle injury is assisted out on foot and horseback
  • 3/13/2017 Pima Canyon Trail: Ill and unresponsive hiker flown out
  • 3/14/2017 Butterfly Trail: A head injury in the Novio Spring area eventually results in a hiker being flown out
  • 3/16/2017 Bellota Trail near La Milagrosa Canyon: Chest pains reported by a hiker via Personal Locator – hiker flown out
  • 3/18/2017 Palisades Canyon: Rockfall injury during a canyoneering descent – two party members flown out, two assisted out on foot
  • 3/19/2017 Willow Canyon: Hikers became lost in the Rose Canyon Lake area and are assisted out after ending up in the Seven Cataracts drainage
  • 3/20/2017 Window Peak: Hikers become lost when they take the trail up to Window Peak rather than heading down – hoisted out the next morning
  • 3/21/2017 Bear Canyon Trail: An exhausted hiker with medical complications and ankle injury are assisted out
  • 3/25/2017 Seven Falls Trail: A fall on the trail results in a hiker being unresponsive for several minutes – carried and flown out
  • 3/29/2017 Romero Pools: A fall results in a head injury – injured hiker was flown out
Sunset from the Pontatoc Canyon Trail. March 2017.
Sunset from the Pontatoc Canyon Trail. March 2017.

Bellota Trail, Molino Basin to Redington Road – 3/26/2017

Beautiful green below West Spring near the large tank on the Bellota Trail. March 2017.
Beautiful green below West Spring near the large tank on the Bellota Trail. March 2017.

Pieces of the Bellota Trail are easy to see from the Molino Basin Parking Area or the Italian Spring Trailhead, but at over 20 miles for a full out and back it’s a long day to see the whole thing – so it was lucky to find a friend interested in doing a car swap/key exchange allowing me to make the rather beautiful trip out of the Santa Catalina Mountains over to Redington Road with a casual start, relaxed pace and plenty of time to enjoy the journey!

Scarlet Pimpernel high in Agua Caliente Canyon where the Bellota Trail crosses after leaving FR36A. March 2017.
Scarlet Pimpernel high in Agua Caliente Canyon at the Bellota Trail crossing (after the trail leaves FR36A). March 2017.
The Lake - this pool of water is just off the Arizona Trail (Bellota Trail) near 'The Lake' Trailhead on FR36. March 2017.
The Lake – this pool of water is just off the Arizona Trail (Bellota Trail) near The Lake Trailhead on FR36. March 2017.
Looking towards the Evans Mountain from Point 4622, just off the Bellota Trail. March 2017.
Looking towards the Evans Mountain from Point 4622, just off the Bellota Trail. March 2017.