The Knagge Trail has the perfect amount of soft snow – plenty to enjoy, but not enough to require anything more than trekking poles and a little care to navigate. The old Knagge cabin site and mine are high enough to still have a light blanket of snow from this year’s unusually wet winter – lower on the trail, in oaks and sun, the snow disappears long before the large old cairn on the ridge and the carsonite marker declaring the end of the maintained trail. Past the marker the ‘trail’ seems obvious, drawing you down along the ridge connecting sections of maybe-this-is-the-old-trail just good enough to go just a little farther… Too soon any illusion that I am still on the old trail disappears and it is time to head back up.
knagge mine
Knagge Trail – 2/15/2018
Clouds cover the mountain, small waterfalls decorate highway road cuts and on the trail every small drainage is flowing – the variety on the mountain is infinite, what an interesting day to be on the Knagge ‘Trail’!
The Knagge Trail is still drawn onto maps of Santa Catalina Mountains, but like the Davis Spring and Brush Corral Trails, it disappears long before reaching it’s eastern terminus. You can, of course, still make your way down to the junction of the Knagge Trail and the Davis Spring Trail in Edgar Canyon, and even find occasional convincing pieces of old trails, but at this point it is an off-trail adventure.