Aldo Leopold Wilderness, Gila National Forest - North Seco Creek Box
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| Butterfly milkweed |
I've been wanting to get to the North Seco Box ever since I got a copy of Bill Cunningham and Polly Burke's " Hiking the Aldo Leopold Wilderness" way back in the early 2000's. We got close one Autumn, probably a mile away, about 10 years ago.
Sometimes, a calm comes over me and I realize there's nothing holding me back from the thing I want to do, and I do it. That doesn't mean it will be convenient or super easy. It just means it's going to happen. I've so many places I want to go, all within a (sometimes long) day trip that many times it's just hard to decide which one to do. Interests, priorities, and schedules shift which rearranges the queue over and over, but the most important factors that frequently rule the choice are accessibility, difficulty, duration and season.
The North Seco Box has none (or perhaps only one) of these in its favor right now. It's nearly a three hour drive from Las Cruces to the trailhead, with the last 3 or so miles past Hermosa on a rotten coda to the now mostly well maintained Forest Road 157, where the going is tortuously slow right up to the dead end at the locked blue gate past which the last mile or so (seemingly in better shape, but perhaps because it's not driven on anymore) has to be walked down to the creek.
Sometimes, a calm comes over me and I realize there's nothing holding me back from the thing I want to do, and I do it. That doesn't mean it will be convenient or super easy. It just means it's going to happen. I've so many places I want to go, all within a (sometimes long) day trip that many times it's just hard to decide which one to do. Interests, priorities, and schedules shift which rearranges the queue over and over, but the most important factors that frequently rule the choice are accessibility, difficulty, duration and season.
The North Seco Box has none (or perhaps only one) of these in its favor right now. It's nearly a three hour drive from Las Cruces to the trailhead, with the last 3 or so miles past Hermosa on a rotten coda to the now mostly well maintained Forest Road 157, where the going is tortuously slow right up to the dead end at the locked blue gate past which the last mile or so (seemingly in better shape, but perhaps because it's not driven on anymore) has to be walked down to the creek.
So much for convenient accessibility. It's not a difficult hike.There is little elevation gain or loss, excepting the road walking down to the creek, and the trudge back up to the parking at the end of the day. It is long walk though, somewhere around 10 miles round trip which took about six hours including lunch, a few rests and copious picture taking. It's just a long day of both driving and hiking.
I have time off, and time on my hands in the summer, but this hike, which tops out at an elevation just under 7,000 feet is not really summertime hike. I started just after 9 and the day warmed up quickly in the wide east facing valley. Trying to keep a steady 3 mph pace on the way didn't help either. Still, I was never really uncomfortable, although I did dip my hat in the stream occasionally and wet my shirt a couple of times on the way back.
All that being said, the reasons I did go, became crystal clear, the day before I went. I wanted a place where almost no one goes (I like it best when I can't find a single picture of a destination on the internet. If there's too many I lose interest), and even it's anything like the boxes of (the similarly massively inconvenient) South Fork Palomas Creek or Sapillo Creek, or the trips to the waterfalls in East and West Curtis Canyons, all of which I've visited in the past four years, then I knew the magic would be worth it.
The creek was dry at the road crossing, but Davis Well's solar powered pump was filling two small ponds with water. I walked west on the road, hoping perhaps to see some ancient pottery between the dried grass, but being fooled too many times by rocks that had a maddeningly uncanny similarity to ceramics I've found in the past.
I have time off, and time on my hands in the summer, but this hike, which tops out at an elevation just under 7,000 feet is not really summertime hike. I started just after 9 and the day warmed up quickly in the wide east facing valley. Trying to keep a steady 3 mph pace on the way didn't help either. Still, I was never really uncomfortable, although I did dip my hat in the stream occasionally and wet my shirt a couple of times on the way back.
All that being said, the reasons I did go, became crystal clear, the day before I went. I wanted a place where almost no one goes (I like it best when I can't find a single picture of a destination on the internet. If there's too many I lose interest), and even it's anything like the boxes of (the similarly massively inconvenient) South Fork Palomas Creek or Sapillo Creek, or the trips to the waterfalls in East and West Curtis Canyons, all of which I've visited in the past four years, then I knew the magic would be worth it.
The creek was dry at the road crossing, but Davis Well's solar powered pump was filling two small ponds with water. I walked west on the road, hoping perhaps to see some ancient pottery between the dried grass, but being fooled too many times by rocks that had a maddeningly uncanny similarity to ceramics I've found in the past.
One of the things I noticed right away is that cattle are not here, and by the end of my day, seeing the remarkable recovery this place has undergone, I came to the conclusion, that it would a sin to let them back on. About mile west of the Davis Windmill the stream begins to get more and more shaded with mature alders, narrowleaf cottonwoods, box elder and oaks and lo and behold the stream came to life with a few inches of amber water trickling through the pale stones.
Further on, in burnt over sections, beyond the wilderness boundary at Sawmill Well, young alder growth was crowding the banks, keeping things shaded enough for at least some flow, albeit with a couple intermittent dry stretches, all the way to the box.
It had seemed so easy and I had made such good time, I could hardly believe I was entering the narrowest section of the canyon, where on the north, gigantic formations of red and tan volcanic rocks grew at the top of steep, nearly bare hillsides.
On the south, straight gray cliffs like book spines went up a hundred feet and more. Spruces, pines, alders and firs craned and stretched toward the sky trying to rise above them.
Directly in front of me, however, the jungle of willows, and the dark passage ( even with sun almost directly overhead) began which I had to push through for next half mile or so. I didn't mind. At my feet the creek was at a modest gush, with pools, some of which there was absolutely no practical choice but to wade through, up to two feet deep where tadpoles wriggled away at my approach. I paused for thought as I did when I visited the Sapillo Box a couple of years, ago: these same passages might be waist deep or higher early in the spring. So, maybe the driest time of the year isn't such a bad choice after all.
Eventually I got to the mouth of Long Canyon on the south side, beyond which, North Seco entered an open, well burnt over section, which would not have been much fun to walk through at the noon hour, and was happily beyond the scope of my plans for this day.
I turned back around and ate my lunch sitting on gray bedrock eroded to appear as the pages of a book, with perfect views of perfect bends in the creek both up and down stream. As I looked around at the quiet stream, green trees, I had the feeling I was somewhere else in the Gila, or New Mexico, or the west. Or maybe it just felt like a different time, before all the drought and fires. It was over too soon. I made my way back more slowly now, shaking hands with the grandfather trees, and saying hello to the stellar's jays who came to check me out. I purified some extra water.
Eventually I got to the mouth of Long Canyon on the south side, beyond which, North Seco entered an open, well burnt over section, which would not have been much fun to walk through at the noon hour, and was happily beyond the scope of my plans for this day.
I turned back around and ate my lunch sitting on gray bedrock eroded to appear as the pages of a book, with perfect views of perfect bends in the creek both up and down stream. As I looked around at the quiet stream, green trees, I had the feeling I was somewhere else in the Gila, or New Mexico, or the west. Or maybe it just felt like a different time, before all the drought and fires. It was over too soon. I made my way back more slowly now, shaking hands with the grandfather trees, and saying hello to the stellar's jays who came to check me out. I purified some extra water.
Back at Davis Well I walked around the ponds, frogs leaping into the water at my every step, then down to the old corral and loading chute, and then down a little further to a small clearing.Walking back up old FR 893, a fox, or maybe even a coyote, most likely after getting a drink at the well, bounded through the brush in front of me. I didn't want to leave.
Labels: Aldo Leopold Wilderness, fall colors, hiking, wildflowers
posted by Devon Fletcher at
3:06 PM
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