Horse Mountain Wilderness Study Area - Horse Mountain Gorge

 

Horse Mountain Gorge

 I did two hikes back in mid-October in the Horse Mountain WSA which is conveniently located adjacent to my cabin property in Teepee Ranch. Technically I began both my walks on intervening non-WSA BLM lands,  but they really are just a de-facto extension of the WSA parcel. On the Saturday I did a loop following the canyon that runs through our parcel back onto BLM lands. When I reached the intervening ridge, I began to circle around the upper part of Log Canyon. There was some scrambling at first getting down off the ridge a bit, but then I hit on a great wildlife trail that brought me all the way around to the plateau that's centered between the two ridges of the mountain and at the top of two canyons running in opposite directions.

 I got a much different look at a massive rock pillar that we had seen last year when doing loop hike using Nance and Log Canyons. It was even more impressive. This time, unlike last year, I found the wildlife drinker at the top of Log Canyon and so used the old road route to connect to the main canyon which took me back to the WSA entrance just down the road from the cabin, where my wife picked me up. It was a good hike although a bit warm for October. The fall color was hardly evident throughout most of hike which was a bit disappointing (we would return the following weekend to find it peaking).

 On Sunday, I left around nine beginning the same way, but then migrating over to the canyon just to east. It was cool and shaded as I made my way along the old trail that winds through the pines, oaks and tall grasses. 

Pine cones were so abundant on the ground they became a bit of nuisance at times. I took my time zigzagging up the steep slopes to get to the top of the ridge, but I was pleased when I checked the time to see that less than a half hour had even elapsed. I came off the ridge on some very steep gravel patches among the piñons and junipers, all the while drifting to the east to catch the canyon that I knew would lead directly into the gorge. At the head were thick grasses just beginning to fade from their summertime green, and large well-spaced ponderosa pines. An enchanting scene that seemed to beckon me downward to my destination.

A couple of deer ran across this scene adding to the magic.

I felt pulled as if into a funnel and gravity took over lightening my steps through this welcoming passage. Abundant downfall, brush and boulders in the now enlarged dry creek bed ended my idyl, but I pushed on scrambling my down and down as cliffs rose at the sides of the ever-narrowing defile. The pines stretched ridiculously higher and higher toward the sun. Crenulated bare cliffs of crusty volcanic rock where many hoodoos emerged were in the near distance as I approached the point where the two branches of the gorge meet. Nearer at hand were isolated towers and pillars stretching directly overhead. I carefully rounded the vertex to have a look up the other canyon. On my left was massive wall of gray rock looming over the canyon bottom thick with green shrubbery.  On my right a treacherous slope of crumbly white rock that precluded further advancement.

 I retreated and carefully got myself down to the stream course and began heading down. Here there were some nice oaks beginning in their fall color, plus more formations above and the tallest ponderosa pines I've ever seen close at hand. I turned around when I caught site of an old well because I knew I was at the boundary between private and public land.

 Before leaving altogether I explored up the south branch. Vegetation was thick and green and there was even a couple of puddles where small dams had been built into the natural cascade in an effort to retain any bit of water possible. A little further upstream I came to some large boulders wedged into the narrow cliff opening, where it appears on Google Earth that a waterfall sometimes occurs. It did not seem readily scalable for this 64 year old and I quickly decided to explore the area above another day. 

The return trip had me marching up the long "arm" that comes down from the ridge between the two branches. This much more gradual ascent (as opposed to returning the way I came) made the uphill both ways truth of the hike a little easier to swallow. It was all over and done in a total of almost exactly three hours, but down in that wonderful canyon, time stood still for a little while.