Florida Mountains - BLM and State Lands

Baldy Peak in center

        

So, I've also been trying to make it out to the Floridas or Little Floridas at least once a year as well. Truly, if they were a just a little bit closer to home, I'd be out there all the time. Second only to our own Organ Mountains here in Las Cruces as beautiful desert ranges go, it's amazing to me that the main Floridas seem to be a place known for hunting Persian Ibex and not much else. Spring Canyon, which is part of Rockhound Stat Park does receive a decent amount of visitors and people use Windmill Canyon occasionally to climb to Florida Peak, the range's highpoint, but there are many areas of both State and BLM lands that probably see very few, if any people. I speculate the main reasons for the dearth of visitors lie in  the facts that the access to many areas is not only rough but confusing ( above mentioned Spring Canyon being the exception with a nice paved road all the way to the parking area) and that there are no well established human engineered trails ( Lover's Leap Canyon, a well trod use trail also starting from Spring Canyon perhaps the only exception).   Other  use, livestock and wildlife trails are unreliable, and when the terrain gets steep, rocky or both, they are non-existent. The crazy Mahoney Park road will get you to a high ridge with access to Baldy and Gym Peaks, but it presents its own set of problem with  truly daunting driving conditions, or a very long hike with considerable elevation gain if you decide to go it on foot.

 I parked at the first closed ( but not locked) gate on the Mahoney Park road and I'm glad I did because there is section a little less than 1 1/2 miles in that is lumpy ( as well as steep) in the extreme. I have confidence in my Tacoma's 4WD, but I really don't think I had the clearance needed. I started following the fence line south, and then southeast. I'm pretty sure, if you stick to this route, you will stay on State and BLM land avoiding a couple of private inholdings. There was not only a cattle trail this way, but I kept seeing lines of rocks across the path, as if someone had tried to establish a hiking trail here at one time. I kept my pace up, but eventually was slowed down by the many crossings of arroyos and ravines. 

rocks marking an old path

flood-lain deposits

Line of boulders

I also began stopping to snap off many photos of the pinnacles and towers of the ridge to the west. There may have even been a natural arch on the slopes of the 7000 foot plus un-named peak that is about a mile to the northeast of South Peak.

 I finally arrived at the road that comes off of east side of the Mahoney Park road and began marching up to the old and currently defunct iron water tank. 

Non-functioning drinker

From that point on there was only the faintest of trails to  follow as I made my way up the narrow canyon. As the evergreen oak trees increased, so did the boulders, so the hike became about half scrambling  and half following the wildlife trail on the slightest of benches on either side of the stream course. I made it past the rock towers where canyon was its tightest, and then rested near a large ( but alas dying) alligator juniper and some wildly branching but very bushy and healthy looking piñons.

Bushwhacking this canyon was a little tough

 I continued climbing up over some lower dry waterfalls in the bedrock.  I had been hoping to find a trickle of water, but there was nothing but some hopeful flies. At least there was chitter-chatter of springtime birds, if not the babble of a brook.The canyon began to widen the higher I went. The shady oaks and piñons thinned and as I came upon the site of several larger, but dead alligator junipers in the hot sun, I decided it was time to turn around. I believe at some point I crossed over from state lands onto the BLM's Florida Mountains Wilderness Study Area.

                                                                                                                              

 I made up my mind earlier to make the hike a loop by using the Mahoney Park road to return to my vehicle. The road passes through the private inholding for a little over a mile. It's not posted, except at a corral and windmill, but please stay on the road and be respectful if you go.  I looked up to the white top of Baldy Peak towering to the east, and scanned the cliffs for glimpse of an ibex, as I always do when I'm out in the two Florida ranges, but didn't see one.

 Mahoney Park Road looking south
                  

Stone wall along the road

There is the ruin of a very stout stone structure along the way. What it was, I don't know. Let me know if you do. It makes for some great pictures anyway. Using the road was longer in distance, but easier on the legs and feet than my original way out.  Because of the lack of route finding, it probably took about the same amount of time. Total mileage for the loop was close to seven.

NOTE: I believe the small isolated peak about a half mile southeast from where I parked is the site of a proposed magnesium mine that is causing quite a bit of controversy in the nearby subdivisions and in the town of Deming. I thought about my several hours of absolute quiet, with the cows, birds and rabbits and how devastating the noise of a round the clock mining operation would be to this beautiful area. I know mines have to be somewhere, but it would be damn shame if it were here.                                                    

Proposed mountain to be mined on the right

 a magnesium mine will certainly alter this view