Southern New Mexico Explorer: Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest

Bear Wallow Wilderness

Bear Wallow Creek

Fish Creek

Meadow at KP Cienega

Colorado Spruce like a Christmas tree farm

We camped here a couple of times, once in July, 2005 and the second time in June, 2008. On that first trip, We hiked down the headwater branch of KP Creek that starts at the"cienega" near the campground. We got to the main KP Creek (a Blue River tributary) where I had a great time doing some really exciting fishing for (and catching!) Apache trout. I also went to the upper end of Fish Creek and tiny Bear Creek (two tributaries of the Black River) on this same trip but didn't have any luck at either. We hiked in the Bear Wallow Wilderness along Bear Wallow Creek (another Black River tributary) but I don't recall doing any fishing there. We did a bunch of driving around in what was then the largest expanse of ponderosa pine forest anywhere. Much of it got burnt in the massive Bear Wallow Fire in 2011. I've written about the second trip in a previous blog (see "Aker Lake" from July, 2008). It appears from more recent photos that the campground did not get damaged, although the forest nearby lost many spruce, fir and pines. I remember the hummingbirds at the campground host's feeder and the mice scurrying all around the vault toilet. I remember it being damp and cool and worrying about cooking salmon because it might attract bears. I remember feeling like the desert was a thousand miles away when really it was only 40 or so. I remember seeing some smoke in the distance as we wound around good gravel roads and that a stand of trees at the edge of the meadow were already burned during our visit, but it was nothing like the damage that was to come. I remember going to the store at Hannagan Meadow an hour early and then figuring out that Arizona doesn't do daylight savings time. I remember elk and deer in the meadow every evening.

I probably won't ever return. I think I prefer to think about it this area the way it was instead of seeing what it is now, but who knows?