Hunter Trail

Picacho Peak has an amazing hike. It starts fairly easy though when you reach the Saddle you are tired.

Then you find out the real work starts. The second half of the trail uses cables for sections that are just too difficult to hike. We needed the gloves we brought with all the cables. We were frequently climbing, not hiking, on this trail.

I missed the cables when they weren’t there since the trail can be very narrow along a steep edge. Since I am scared of heights, I may have missed the views by staring at my feet instead of looking up and out. All in all, this trail got my heart beating!

Another exciting part of this trail is the lizards. As you are grabbing for a hand hold, suddenly a lizard appears on the rocks. Not dangerous…just startling.  Oh, and we had a couple of hawks that swooped fairly close as we neared their home. Again, it wasn’t dangerous but it was surprising.

The end is worth it. The views are amazing. Hills that we thought were big were small from the top. Of course, then we had to redo the trail to return. On the way back I slipped in a pile of stones and hit my knee and hand. No major damage but it took me longer on the way back and a few days of rest to heal. Quite a hike!

Picacho Peak State Park

No, not Pikachu the pokemon; it’s pi-CAH-cho which means a type of hill in Spanish. The park is between Tucson and Phoenix and has some great views.

The history of the park is that the only battle of the Civil War fought in Arizona was here. A Mormon battalion also came through here in 1846.  So there are a bunch of memorials with signs explaining all this.

Over the weekend the winds were intense. The whole RV rocked back and forth while things rattled in the wind. The good news is that it’s finally spring with several types of yellow flowers blooming.

Views from a few of the smaller hikes.

Patagonia Lake State Park

I’m a minority. At least at Patagonia Lake State Park I am a minority in that I’m a hiker and not a birder. In the morning I see dozens of people out with notebooks, binoculars, and cameras to see the birds. Apparently, this park has many bird species that winter here along with several rare types of birds that are found in this limited area. There are guided bird hikes (3 hours long) and bird boat tours. Instead, I hike. Though…here are the sounds in the morning. The birds can be quite loud.

Unfortunately the hiking trails are limited. The first morning I thought I’d head along the lake toward the dam. I found out there aren’t really trails, just a weak path that got weaker the farther I traveled. At some point with the coves in the lakes, I got turned around so I thought I’d head for a nearby peak. It took some bushwhacking, but eventually I found a road to get back to the park. I did get to see deer in the hills though no pictures due to the distance.

For some reason this part of the park has lots of cattle, so you really have to watch out for cow piles. They are EVERYWHERE. I heard a story where a bull charged a hiker but I just got some stares from them.

The very cool part was that I saw a coatimundi (the thing with eyes between the trees). I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this animal before. First I saw the long tail sticking out of the bushes. The coatimundi looked at me for some time. But like Bigfoot, my pictures are blurry and from a distance. It is real!

The next morning I thought I’d climb a peak. I could not find a trail, so I just climbed. I’m glad it was cool since climbing in rocks is not something that you really want to do in an area with rattlers. Luckily, no sighting of any snakes.

You know those movies where the hero is running down a hallway and the end of the hallway seems to keep moving away? That’s what it seemed like while climbing this hill. The top seemed like it was always out of reach. Then when I finally climbing the hill, I realized there was another peak behind just a bit higher. And another behind it that was higher. I finally did climb that peak where the views were amazing.

The park really doesn’t have trails as much as it has cow paths. I’ve done more bushwhacking this week than I’ve done in a months. It’s too bad because the views are great when you can get there. It’s just that you have to fight so hard to get there!

On one of my hikes I ended up following a trail that disappeared and sometimes reappeared so I had to bushwhack through major portions. Pushing through bushes isn’t a major thing in the East. Doing that in Arizona with all the thorns and spikes is something else. Torn up my clothes a bit. The good part is being short so I could stoop under some of the thorns. Really good exercise since it felt I was doing an obstacle course!

Bisbee

We took a drive to Bisbee to take the tour of the mine. They mostly call it a copper mine but all sorts of minerals were mined here. These included copper, silver, gold, lead, zinc, and magnesium. The tour starts with dressing up with a vest, hard hat, belt, and light.

You ride a vehicle that rides the rail. It’s sort of like riding a horse with everyone straddling a long seat/board. This makes it pretty fun (though I don’t know if women ride side saddle if they were silly enough to wear a dress). You easily see both sides of the mine versus riding two to a seat and you can use your light to look around.

The guide is someone who worked the mine in the past so you hear different stories as you go along and the explanations of the difficulties are much more real.

A little down the road is an open mine. They say this may open again if technology improves or copper prices increase. Good day!

Return to Tombstone

We spent several hours at Tombstone. We visited back in 2012 (1, 2, 3, 4). This time we did a combination of new places and repeats. The street is always interesting with the red stagecoach along with actors playing different Tombstone characters.

We enjoyed lunch at Crystal Palace. It was funny to see the actors having lunch at the bar at the same time the SyFy channel was playing on TV.

Since I love cemeteries, we had to revisit Boothill. These are the guys killed at OK Corral.

This time we visited Bird Cage Theatre. We didn’t see any ghosts (it’s been on many haunted shows) but we got to see bullet holes in the walls. There are all kinds of items like the Faro table where Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo fought. We recently watched our DVD of the movie “Tombstone” so stuff like the stage and pictures of the Earps was pretty cool.

On the way back, we stopped at the ghost town of Fairbank. It was more “ghost” than we expected. There were only a few buildings left. 

Kartchner Caverns State Park

The big thing to do at this park is visit the caverns. The claim-to-fame for Katchner is that the cave is still “alive”. Water drips and formations are still growing. The state goes all out to keep it this way. The tours are very controlled and you go through 6 doors to enter the cave to keep the atmosphere as it was. You can’t touch anything except a handrail which they wipe down every day. No pictures are allowed. I guess I’m happy to have visited once, but it’s expensive and without pictures you forget what you saw. Carlsbad is still my favorite especially since you can wander without a guide in a large section of the cave.

The thing I REALLY liked at this park was the hikes. At some points I saw spring flowers and other points there was snow. Spring! One of the hikes is along a stream at one point then takes you over a hill. I thought the views were spectacular. Loved it!

All I saw were birds and an occasional rabbit (almost stepped on one!). Then this morning I turned a curve and suddenly heard a stampede coming out of the bushes ahead of me. It sounded like javelinas were everywhere! Most ran off to the left but at least one went right. At this point I was worried. If a baby was stranded from its parents, I could have Mom and Dad attack me as I walked on the path between them. So, I decided to run through that area. At which point I heard more javelinas crashing through the bushes. Did you know that javelina put out a musk that is similar to a skunk? I didn’t get sprayed but it sure smelled!