A Merry Buster Mountain Christmas – 12/25/2018

Light on the top of Buster Mountain. December 2018.
Light on the top of Buster Mountain. December 2018.

Buster Mountain – if it didn’t have a name I wonder how often this spot on the map would be visited – just one of many protrusions on the ribs running west and down from Pusch Ridge. But the question is irrelevant, this rolling hilltop is named for Buster Bailey – probably best know thru Charles Bowden’s Frog Mountain Blues – and the summit register is filled with signatures.

Leviathan Dome, Wilderness Dome and Solitude Pinnacle from Buster Mountain. December 2018.
Leviathan Dome, Wilderness Dome and Solitude Pinnacle from Buster Mountain. December 2018.

From Frog Mountain Blues, p. 46-47:

He has become a footnote. Up on the mountain, there is a Buster Spring and above Buster Spring rolls Buster Mountain. For the old man this seems a trifle strange. He is Buster Bailey, seventy some years old, a man living in a junkyard with a household bagged at the bump. In a city of half-a-million, he is a ghost. And now they’ve gone and made him into some kind of landmark.

A new bridge over Canada del Oro on the Oracle highway swallowed the land he settled as a boy in 1927. The new Catalina State Park spreading against the north side of the range has entombed the ranches he worked and built in the thirties. Mesquite roots chew the soil of his old corrals, hackberry spreads over the spot where he once put his still, and a bulldozer has sliced off his old house lest it blemish the natural setting.

Frog Mountain Blues was published in 1987 and the details are aging – the city of half-a-million has added hundreds of thousands, nearly double depending on what you consider ‘the city’, and Catalina State Park as anything but new.

A few pages later a Jack Dykinga photograph shows bulldozers under curving utility lines, Buster Mountain in the distance on the left and Leviathan Dome rising out of Alamo Canyon on the right. Giant machines plowing thru the desert is a sort of sad ageless classic, but the 77 corridor thru Oro Valley has had so much construction and development for so long that it is hard to muster any deep emotion for a bit more or less asphalt.

Looking south along Pusch Ridge from Buster Mountain - Table Mountain, Bighorn Mountain and Pusch Peak. December 2018.
Looking south along Pusch Ridge from Buster Mountain – Table Mountain, Bighorn Mountain and Pusch Peak. December 2018.

The storm has given us a gift today – clouds and light all around, rain mostly in the distance. In a few more days this area will be legally closed until May, but it will be practically closed until next winter when the summer heat recedes. It is a privilege to be on this landmark, unseen ghosts on the empty mountain side, alone above the city of just-over-a-million.

Watching the clouds and storm on the way down from Buster Mountain. December 2018.
Watching the clouds and storm on the way down from Buster Mountain. December 2018.
Samaniego Peak from the trail up to Buster Mountain. December 2018.
Samaniego Peak from the trail up to Buster Mountain. December 2018.

Knagge Trail – 2/15/2018

Looking down into the clouds from the top of the Knagge Trail. February 2018.
Looking down into the clouds from the top of the Knagge Trail. February 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.

Old cabin site. February 2018.
Old cabin site. February 2018.

From Look to the Mountains, p. 69:

In addition to their homestead and the pack train, The Knagges worked a mining claim in the Catalinas. It was located on the east side of Kellogg Mountain. From around 1916 into the 1930’s, the family spent time at the claim during the summer under very rustic conditions. A simple cabin provided shelter and a spring supplied them with fresh water. On occasion, a mountain lion stalked the camp, lured by their horses and burros.

Mine below the cabin - first time I have seen water flowing here! February 2018.
Mine below the cabin – first time I have seen water flowing here! February 2018.
A distant waterfall thru the clouds. February 2018.
A distant waterfall thru the clouds. February 2018.

Winter Storm – 2/14, 2/15, 2/18/2018

Light on the south side of the Santa Catalina Mountains from Saguaro National Park East. February 2018.
Light on the south side of the Santa Catalina Mountains from Saguaro National Park East. February 2018.

After a largely dry and storm free winter it was a privilege to spend a week under grey skies! Rain, flowing washes, road cuts turned into waterfalls, canyons filled with water – a real joy, and as I write this it looks like we might get another short storm in February!

Clouds over Pusch Ridge from Honey Bee Canyon Park. February 2018.
Clouds over Pusch Ridge from Honey Bee Canyon Park. February 2018.

 

Weathertop in low clouds, from the General Hitchcock Highway. February 2018.
Weathertop in low clouds, from the General Hitchcock Highway. February 2018.
A creature emerging from the clouds! February 2018.
A creature emerging from the clouds! February 2018.
Thimble Peak in the light from Saguaro National Park East. February 2018.
Thimble Peak in the light from Saguaro National Park East. February 2018.

Oracle Hill, First Winter Storm – 12/17/2017

A rainbow from the slopes below Oracle Hill. December 2017.
A rainbow from the slopes below Oracle Hill. December 2017.

With the first good winter storm dropping snow on the top of the mountain I thought there might be interesting views from the San Pedro Valley so I drove north from Benson along the river – the fall color in the river bed was beautiful – but views of the snow on the Santa Catalina Mountains were obscured by a grey wall of clouds – no photos from the valley today, but the drive was still beautiful.

In Oracle I parked at the Callas Drive Gap Road Parking and walked up the road. At the FR4487 and FR736 (which makes a rough 4WD journey across Charouleau Gap down to the west side of the mountain) junction I continue on FR4487 and take the small road that winds up the slopes of Oracle Hill.

Mine entrance near the end of the road up Oracle Hill. December 2017.
Mine entrance near the end of the road up Oracle Hill. December 2017.

From the end of the road I wander up to the top of Oracle Hill and then across the connected ridges and hillsides on cow paths and cross-country admiring the storm above, enjoying the constant wind and occasional rain before wandering back…

First significant storm - and snow - of the winter over Mount Lemmon. December 2017.
First significant storm – and snow – of the winter over Mount Lemmon. December 2017.
Ridges and sunlight. December 2017.
Ridges and sunlight. December 2017.

2017 – 1/1/2017

January 2017.
Light and clouds on the Mountains north of Catalina State Park. January 2017.

Dark pictures, but a happy start to 2017 – what a joy to be outside watching clouds hide and reveal the peaks in the Santa Catalina Mountains – eventually the flat grey of the rain is all around us and, with a smile, we make the short hike out.

Thank you to everyone who visited this site in 2016 – I hope you found it inspiring, useful and informative – I am looking forward to adding more posts and content in 2017!!!

January 2017.
The Cleaver. January 2017.
January 2017.
Rain slowly covering the Santa Catalina Mountains. January 2017.