Florida Mountains Wilderness Study Area - Victorio Canyon

Gym Peak

Barrel cactus and poppies

Baldy Peak upper right

View east to the West Potrillos. Ranchette grid pattern is seen in the middle distance.

At the saddle between two Victorio Canyon tributaries

Three Little Hills area

I had intended to visit the Victorio Canyon area back around Thanksgiving (2022), but a serious washout on the Gap Road had me backtracking to do the hike to the Bradley Mines instead. Well, this time I was able to get through, but let me just say the road is not good and it only got worse the farther south I went on it. Count on an hour once leaving the pavement past Rockhound SP if you intend to visit this area.

 I had originally thought about doing a hike on the southwest side of the range, but with high winds predicted for the early afternoon, I thought a hike on east side would give me more time before they arrived in force from the southwest. The steep wall of the main ridge of the range would act like a massive buffer. I was definitely right about that, although when I first got out of the  truck a few strong, random gusts had me thinking I had gotten the whole thing wrong.

 Anyway, I set out cross country through the poppies and the weeds until I picked up the road (which parallels Victorio Canyon) and then walked briskly along it until leaving off to go cross country again when it took a turn to the north to a corral area. Oddly enough there were couple trucks there that I could see in the distance. They didn't seem to be camping, so perhaps they were hunters out scouting around.

Shortly, I was all the way back at the hidden tributary canyon whose western slope was covered in piñon and juniper. I trucked along, sometimes in the stream bed, sometimes along side it, admiring the surround of cliffs and peaks as I climbed higher. 

Eventually, I climbed back to the east to a saddle well below the towering Gym Peak. I lingered on the saddle a bit. It was such a nice area with tall grasses and beautiful views, but finally I  began my way very roughly down into the next canyon over from the one I ascended. From  where it bottomed out, it was an easy push back to the truck, with the long bone jarring return ride awaiting me.

 To break up the monotony a bit, I stopped at several intervals to take photos of this years abundant poppy bloom, which definitely helped promote the overall positive feeling I took away from this trip.

Broad Canyon Wilderness-Mesas and Canyons, Organ Mts.- Desert Peaks National Monument

 

Top of the World and Bell Top

Sneezeweed

Bell Top

 

Tailholt Mountain

cholla

  

Hersey Place Arroyo

I've had it in mind it to visit what I call Lloyd Well Mesa for some time. I'd been interested to see if any ancient peoples made use of the several mesas in this area ever since discovering a small site in a canyon nearby four years ago. We looked at Hersey Place Mesa last year which is the second largest in this area north of Tailholt and Bell Top Mountains and south of Broad Canyon. We did find some ancient pottery close to the ruins of the old homestead, but little else.

 The problem with visiting Lloyd Well Mesa ( the largest of these mesas) is it requires, because of the Broad Canyon Wilderness boundaries, a fairly long hike just to get there, never mind any exploring one might want to do. It's about equally distant coming at it from either the north or south edges of the wilderness area as well. You can get pretty close by driving up Coyote Canyon to the far eastern end and I've done that twice before. But going that way meant a whole lot more drive time than I wanted.

Lloyd Well Mesa

Anyway, because of all this it hasn't been a high priority destination, even as it stuck with me over time. Well, during my spring break, one sunny weekday late morning , when the wind wasn't too punishing, I just decided to do it and headed out to the trailhead just off of the ever-improving Corralitos Road.

It might have been a total trudge crossing the flats, but luckily there were wildflowers to keep my spirits up.

 On the mesa top, I was greeted by a fence, that strangely cuts diagonally across the mesa's wider western half. There was also wind, and not much else. 

 

I didn't feel like going under a fence just at that moment. In fact I was a little insulted by the notion of going through that trouble just to explore the seemingly equally barren eastern half of the mesa, so I ambled over to the western edge, which is also the highpoint of this tilted landform, and looked down at the arroyos three hundred feet below me.

 I remembered a small canyon dotted with junipers that I had once planned as being my way up the mesa, and now decided it would be my way down off of it. Now, I did have to go under that fence, but with this little canyon canyon calling me on, I didn't mind at all. This  pretty defile obviously gets downright lush compared to the seer look and feel of the mesa. It also isn't readily accessible to the numerous cattle which gets it right in line with true wilderness aesthetics, unlike much of the surrounding area which is in a disgraceful state of degradation due to longstanding mismanagement of grazing.

Before reaching the very bottom of the canyon I crossed over a dangling arm of the mesa and headed down into Hersey Place Arroyo and began heading upstream. This canyon was a lot of fun, and it would be an absolute joy if not for the above mentioned cattle trying their damndest to trample all the life out of it altogether.  I focused on the colorful cliffs and dry cascades and tried to pay as little attention to the abundant cow crap as  I could. Still, I couldn't help but come to the conclusion that in desert areas like this, livestock use and wilderness values are very much incompatible.

I ate a lunch of sardines and crackers in front of a large alcove behind a dry waterfall sitting in the warm sand.

 Before repeating my last leg that more or less repeated my entry into this loop, I found a vein of what looked like calcite, fluorite and quartz. On a second trip to another arroyo just a bit to the west we found some quite large calcite crystals as well just laying on the surface.

That second trip a few days later was a nice one as well with the arroyo being a slightly smaller version of Hersey Place Arroyo with similar cliffs and junipers and a couple of nice dry waterfalls, although the maze of steep walled gullies ( an erosional effect I'm fairly certain that's brought on by overgrazing) close to its confluence with Broad Canyon was rather annoying, as this phenomena is always in the many places it is encountered in Organ Mountains- Desert Peaks National Monument. Still, it was a nice out and back with my wife with good weather holding out for the entire trek.

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