Moments in Dirt and Ink

Gila National Forest Click for map. That bit of southbound Continental Divide Trail still awaits some walking, so that is for today. This bit of trail is, again, in its purest form just about exactly following that great divide. I picked out Pinon Knob as a destination, which should be a little less than 10 miles on the trail and then a short ramble up to stand on the named peak. It's quite a bit lower than the start, but it sticks out a bit so might have some good views. I think I'll go up an unnamed peak 9403 on the way out, too, for the high point of the day. The Forest Service claims I'll be going there anyway but OpenStreetMap thinks I'll more sensibly go around the side of it, but still mostly up it. It'll be another long day. Warnings about the dangers of entering burned areas, but nothing saying the CDT is here except the crest nailed to a tree a little way in. So I start the same direction as northbound, but on the other side of the fence. ...

Gila National Forest Click for map. Eagle Peak stands with a little over 2000 feet prominence and is reachable in a long day hike along ridges via Trail 15. The fact that trail is only called by a number is not the greatest anti-enticement to actually walking it. From what I can see from the trailhead, the forest it goes through experienced devastating crown fire that killed and partly consumed every tree near it. Then, someone went through with chain saws and cut down every obviously dead tree that might fall upon the trail or the nearby fence. It is hard to say which they were trying to save. I've never seen that done for a trail, so probably the fence. The trail is cleared, so at least they were thinking about it. Since Eagle Peak is the tallest thing in the local area, I'm just going to try it anyway. Maybe the next mile gets better. Perhaps I'm letting the end justify the means. The start of Trail 15. It is not the road, although the salvage logging opera...

Gila National Forest Click for map. I decided to stop by where the Continental Divide Trail, in its purest form following just about on top of the Continental Divide, edges right up to the road I happen to be driving north. (It's getting hotter and north is the way to go.) The spot actually comes with a third trail simply designated as #15, so I have plotted three excursions, "north" to John Kerr, "south" to Pinon Knob, and "west" to Eagle Peak. I have some chores for today, pancake mix to produce before I can make breakfast from it for the next two weeks and lentils to boil for suppers over the next couple days, so I'll go for the shortest one. John Kerr is only about 7 miles out while the other two are a little over or a little under 10 miles out. Today I am a northbounder, at least until I leave the trail for the road up the peak. The northbound CDT briefly follows road after touching Forest Route 94. The Continental Divide splits t...

Gila National Forest Click for map. I feel... incomplete after the hike up and around and not down the other side of Clayton Mesa, so I came over to Snow Lake to hike down the river and see the ruins I didn't get to see and maybe even sort out this impossible mystery geocache. That last is really unlikely, but I suspect that if I'd got all but one of the clues on the previous hike, I still wouldn't have got close enough to the cache itself to bother trying to find it. I might have a better chance now that I'm taking the "correct" approach. More importantly, I bumped into the second fire lookout of Mogollon Baldy and she indicates the Middle Fork of the Gila River up here is quite beautiful, but you do have to get down around the dam first. Snow Lake is just a really big tank with a great earthen dam at the end of it. The trail starts at the far side below Dipping Vat Campground and skirts around the edge competing with some fishermen trails. There are...

Gila National Forest Click for map. I actually found the mystery geocache hidden "on" Whitewater Baldy. It was about 40 feet down the hill from where my information said it should be and full of black crumbling paper, charred trade items, and a very corroded geocoin that hopefully some vinegar will clean up sufficiently for logging. (I quite like Geocoins and other trackable items. They get moved around and the travels are recorded. The people who pick them up can write a little something or post pictures. They have a unique code that is used for logging them when they get picked up, but this one will be difficult.) There is another mystery geocache "by" Snow Lake with points to visit up on Clayton Mesa. This one was actually found once they year after the fire. The expected hike for it is about 14 miles from the lake down Middle Fork Gila River and up on the mesa. I have my own idea to visit 5 out of 6 locations by traveling a loop over Clayton Mesa and ...

Gila National Forest Click for map. I came around to the north side of the Gila Wilderness to get some elevation, including the Catron County high point and the area has a completely different look and feel. I took the road in from Glenwood (trailers dangerous, high clearance recommended) and got quite lucky with it because this road (which is a state highway) that has made some peakbaggers with sturdy 4WD question if they really wanted to go is currently in really good shape. I did stop to question if I really wanted to come this way once through Mogollon and the first four stream fords, but figured as long as they were paved it should be fine. The next one wasn't paved. I decided I could use one of the lower trailheads, but I never even saw the next and the one after had a massive gully between the road and the parking. Still, with only a little chasing elk the size of moose as my greatest difficulty, I got to the most sensible trailhead at Sandy Point which includes a ...