Gila National Forest - Berrenda Creek, Pierce Canyon area

 

Looking back toward Berrenda Creek

Volcanic rock with many nodules giving it the look of fossilized limestone.

Sotol forest

Dummy bomb like the ones I've found at Doña Ana County target sites

For some reason I completely spaced out and didn't put this trip on the blog. Well, maybe not for just some reason. Maybe I was subconsciously blocking it out because it wasn't the best of days in the outdoors. 

 I had been trying to figure out a way over into Macho Canyon from Berrenda Creek (while avoiding trespassing on any of the several private inholdings in the area), but let me say before I get too far into this  that the route we started out this day on is definitely not it. We parked  on the left very shortly after entering forest service land. At first we followed a livestock/wildlife trail back along the little side creek headed west. Easy stuff except for low branches and loose soil and gravel. Pretty quickly though the mostly dry creek became a steep-sided gully cut into the whitish-gray (volcanic ash?) bedrock. Then it branched, then it branched again. The side branches were much the same as the main one with only the narrowest of little ridges in between. We would go out of ravine to avoid a small drop-off only to realize the ravine was way safer than the loose gravel and steep slopes above. It  became more than chore, especially given we had to keep lifting our short legged dogs to get them up to the next level of the tight canyon. We weren't making much progress, or having much fun, and we couldn't see where we were going. 

Narrow passage below a waterfall

We got up out of the canyon to look up at a maze of formations in front of us with absolutely no clear cut way to proceed. This whole little boondoggle reminded me once again of folly (sometimes) of letting  satellite images be my guide to unknown places. Google Earth images compress the verticality of any terrain and can't let me see through trees. Elevation changes of less than 25 feet can't really be discerned either and can be mighty inconvenient on the ground when confronted with a 15 foot drop-off in a canyon that's only six feet wide.

 The formations of white and orange were pretty cool though and we took our pictures and began our treacherous descent. I had a back up plan though. We drove a little further down Pierce Canyon, past where we had parked on our last trip out here  to where I had seen an old road following a side canyon.

Cool rock formations.

The kinder, gentler terrain of my back-up plan.

 The walking was pretty easy for little while, but when it started to get steep we retreated. I explored up another road that was barely there that appeared to go to a mining prospect, while my wife and the dogs stayed put in the shade of juniper. High on hill that seemed to be extraordinarily  proficient at growing agave, I realized  the mine tailings were farther away than I expected. I gave up and descended.  In the end the day amounted to a weird outing that was teetering on the edge but luckily didn't fall completely into disaster.

Agave

Florida Mountains Wilderness Study Area - Owl Canyon

South Peak

South Peak

Tres Hermanas Mountains in the distance

old junipers

Above the box falls

box section

rock tower that was my constant companion

South Peak from NM 11

East Branch of Owl Canyon

Hackberries

This canyon is on the south end of the Florida Mountains.  It has no name on maps, but I've seen it referred to as Owl Canyon in a couple of places. I parked way too far away as is my frequent habit. The road actually improved greatly beyond where I stopped, I discovered on the return hike. I went cross-country on the way out negotiating my way through a virtual catclaw forest and going up down cobble-clad washes until reaching the escarpment of bare  brown rock mounds that come down to meet the desert floor.

 I found my canyon, which resembled a gravel road at this point and then I moved on to the east and into the box section.  

Getting out of the box section at the back was more than a little dicey. My choices were going under a huge boulder at the dry waterfall, or clawing my way up a steep (and I mean steep) wildlife path through the rock. I chose the path but it wasn't a good choice. The dry waterfall definitely wasn't. On my return trip I realized there was trail of sorts that takes off from the end of the road and bypasses both of these options quite nicely.

 I continued on, stomping the sand and gravel, weaving through and sometimes walking on the many boulders. A dilapidated fence was a brief obstacle. Eventually, I came to a little grove of hackberries growing on the bank and followed the deer path that threaded its way through them. 

Shortly after I came to the first dry waterfall, which was dry, but when I made my around it I soon found the barest trickle of water silently running in the cracks of the bedrock. 

I continued up and up, easy walking on the bedrock now. At the second falls, I had to side step my way around huge boulder, while avoiding getting the bottoms of shoes wet from barest of slicks coming down the mountain.

 I made it up to a third high, very steep falls that was once again dry with just the white mineral residue staining the nearly black rock.

It's all intrusive igneous here but with xenoliths and crazy pinkish veins running everywhere through the groundmass of gray granite.

 I love getting back into these canyons of the Floridas. They are quietly majestic and I find it hard to put into words the spell the towers, cliffs, cascades and falls put upon me. The junipers, growing ancient, twisted and huge (at least compared to those growing out in the open hillsides) in the near perpetual shadows of the peaks, bring me joy as if I was meeting a beloved person from history.

 I lingered for awhile.

 I headed back down. I found the trail just past a wilderness study are marker, that led me to the road which I followed all the way back to the truck.

 There were poppies here and there. Not many, but nice just the same