A wind blew out of the canyon and scoured the slickrock. It bellowed and roared all day and into the night, slipping around corners and thrumming against the tent. I burrowed into my sleeping bag, curled up in a ball until the wind died and sleep came. The following day a breeze swirled, the camp…
Category: hiking
Hiking Wooden Shoe Canyon
Things change. Why, just a few months ago, you could hike Squaw Canyon in Canyonlands National Park, spend a night at SQ1 or SQ, connect with Lost Canyon or Big Spring Canyon for a nice loop, and come back with some great memories and a few swell photos. But things change, and the canyon is…
The Arizona Trail: Happy Jack Passage
The Happy Jack passage runs about 29.5 miles from end to end in Coconino National Forest, and I imagine there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of hikers who have done it from top to bottom in one shot. I am not one of those hikers. I am lazy and unfocused. Also, when I did this passage,…
Hiking Vallecito Creek
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…
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…
Disclaimer:
We live in a litigious, guardrail society, in which is necessary to state the obvious. Hiking the Arizona backcountry is dangerous. There is a perception that when a trail appears in a guidebook, or on a website, or in a magazine, it has been “tamed.” It has not. You are responsible for your own safety….
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…