We hoisted big packs and tottered upstream, the day sunny, our brains foggy with the flotsam of a night spent in a Durango brewpub. Vallecito Creek offers a back door to Chicago Basin, where you’ll find some of the coolest peaks in southern Colorado. Yes, there is another way to gain access to the Basin…
Category: hiking
Arizona Trail, Kaibab Plateau
The Kaibab Plateau sneaks up on you. A few sections of the Arizona Trail cut across its eastern flank, through big country that sticks to your memory and gets under your skin. There are some gorgeous walks up there. The trail cuts through timber and meadow, though aspen glens and evergreen clusters, mile after mile….
Hiking Elk Creek
The best policy is to keep walking. The fishing at Elk Creek ranges from so-so to pretty darn good, and the hiking keeps getting better as the creek climbs and loops through wood and meadow. The aspens flutter and the air is thin as you climb, but the views are worth it: Keep walking. The…
Hiking Saddle Mountain Wilderness
Saddle Mountain Wilderness is home to a small population of Apache trout. The fish are small and skittish, and the casting windows range from tight to impossible. Unless you enjoy nettles, snags and fishless days, leave the fly rod in the truck. This is a place to hike. The wilderness is on the eastern edge…
Hiking the Alamo Canyon Passage
A few things grab your attention when you hike the Alamo Passage of the Arizona Trail. The first is Picketpost Mountain – how it rises out of the Sonoran scrub and commands the view for about four miles as you move north to south. Telegraph Fire The next thing that will grab your attention is…
Hiking Soap Creek
Decades ago, I backpacked into a place Soap Creek, tributary of the Colorado River in northern Arizona. It’s possible that just about everything about our trip was illegal – our dogs, our campfire on the beach, our feasting like Viking lords on a fat rainbow trout, howling at the moon. We did not have a…
Hiking Canyonlands National Park
Getting lost in The Maze I don’t know what I can tell you, other than don’t go, or think about it, or, take a friend and make sure you stop frequently for a map check. Getting turned around in The Maze is easy to do, and it’s not much fun. Trails are few and hard…
Hiking Saddle Mountain Wilderness
A walk on the wild side Saddle Mountain Wilderness is home to a small population of Apache trout. The fish are small and skittish, and the casting windows range from tight to impossible. Unless you enjoy nettles, snags and fishless days, leave the fly rod in the truck. This is a place to hike. The…
Hiking Aravaipa Canyon
Eddie thought we were crazy. He thought that all that wading on a cold day would end in disaster once the sun went down, but we didn’t listen. The canyon was calling. The forecast called for colder and getting colder, clear to partly hypothermic at night. It was December, and someone, I think it…