October 26 -- A 9-mile Round-Trip Hike To Silver Peak

But first -- well, what did you expect?

I couldn't let a gorgeous sunrise like that pass on by... It was finally THE day for the hike up Silver Peak. You remember that one, right? I've photographed it enough times ---

 And our destination was the highest point of that massif, just left of center. The trail goes from 4700 to 7035 feet (thanks for my friend Winston Lewis, proprietor of the George Walker House in the tiny community (12 full-time souls) of Paradise for that info) in 4 and 1/2 miles. And it's in the sun with practically no shade for the first mile. We actually hiked it at about the right time of year -- the sun is lower in the sky so the north side of the tail is in shade, and the weather is much cooler. It can become an oven in summer, not to mention the bugs...The 3 of us, Peter, Dodie and I, met at the trailhead around 7:30. The trail goes through open land, mostly grasses and oak trees with a few yuccas and other desert plants scattered here and there, for the first mile, then cuts up the base of the mountain and curves around to the north side. Along this part of the route, we flushed out Montezuma Quail -- it must have been around 10. (Montezuma Quail is a Target -- and nemesis -- bird for many birders, but we've had a pretty good number of them this year.)  At this stage the trail is a bit narrow and rocky, and this is the first long hike I've done in about a year, so I brought my new trekking poles (well, I bought them a year ago in Bishop, but haven't used them up until now) but had some trouble with them as the latches that held the telescoping parts for the length size kept coming undone -- so they got shorter than I needed at the most inopportune times. If I had known the condition of the trail I probably would not have brought them along, but I wanted to save my knees going back down. (It turned out I tied them to the back of my day pack as they caused more trouble than help.) We saw a lot of "scat" along the trail, mostly that of Gray Fox, but Peter ID'd some of it as belonging to a Black Bear -- and we actually saw the bear prints, going straight up to the next level of the trail. At this point, along the north side, the trail started a series of switchbacks, and we considered ourselves lucky that we were in shade. There was a nice variety of trees -- Oak (possibly Gambel's), Douglas Fir, and Apache Pine among the larger ones. There were wet, somewhat slimy patches, too; Dodie said she'd hiked the trail in spring, when there was still snow on the ground. The views were good from the beginning -- but they just kept getting better as we ascended. As you can imagine from the photo above of Silver Peak, the trail was relentless having to go that many miles with such an altitude gain. It took us about 4 hours to get to the top -- and for the most part we were taking our time talking and occasinally looking out at the views. (During our talks while climbing, Dodie and I agreed that "No Country For Old Men" was a great movie, and Peter and I discovered a shared interest in science fiction books. Sure helped make the time go by faster.) Finally, at around noon, I said I really needed a rest -- and Dodie said "We're there!" Near the top is a small building, further up us an outhouse -- and at the top were the foundations of a fire lookout that had burned down (or so the story goes) in the late 80s-early 90s; lightning, or a camp fire, are said to be the probable causes. The views, as you can imagine, were incredible. We had lunch, then I started taking photos, both expansive ones with my 17-55mm landscape lens, and zoom-in telephotos with the 100-400 and 1.4x TC. Here are a few --

This is the view looking north from the lookout to the famous landmark of Cochise Head, which is said to resemble the face of Cochise in profile (a horizontal profile, or course). It's in the Chiricahua National Monument, at least 20 air miles from Silver Peak. Here's a closeup of Chochise Head, using the 100-400 lens --

Cochise's "profile" runs from right to left; the tallest part is his nose. A better angle for viewing the profile is more to the left, but considering the effort it took to get to the top, this was good enough...In the landscape photo above you can barely make out some buildings in the lower center of the photo. This is a "community" of Paradise, 'round-year population of 12. One of the main attractions of Paradise is the George Walker House, built around the turn of the 20th century by one of the first homesteaders there. It's since become a famous hotel, run by my friends Winston and Jackie Lewis. Before the hike, Winston asked me to take a photo of Paradise, but I did one better, taking a photo of the George Walker House with my telephoto lens --

The actual George Walker House is the smaller green-roofed building on the left; the other is Winston's and Jackie's house. Not bad, consider the distance, eh? Views looking east to the distant mountains up to 100 miles away were spectacular --

And those are the final steps leading to the lookout, or rather the foundations to the lookout. The steps at certain points seemed as if they were made for giants; you really had to take a long step up.  This is the view looking east, with range upon range; Peter was IDing them for us. 

The above photo was taken slightly to the left of the previous one. The road you can barely make out in the lower left that is running more or less in a straight line is the dirt road from Portal to Paradise (distance about 5 and 1/2 miles). And the narrow patch line of brown in between the green, running just to the right of center, is the broad plain of Cave Creek, that eventually runs down to the San Simon River, which runs from south to north in the San Simon Valley -- and at this time of the year is usually dry. 

I'm glad I brought my 100-400 lens with me!    And let's not forget the views to the west of the Chiricahuas -- 

The line in the center is the "trans Chiricahuan" road that goes up and over to the other side of the mountains to the Chiricahua National Monument (and Cochise Head). The view looking in a southerly direction is of Cave Creek Canyon -- 

And way up northwest is Dos Cabezas (Two Heads), which is at the northern end of the Chiricahuas, at least 30 miles distant -- 

This was a stretch even for my telephoto lens...After being up at top for about an hour (and it was perfect weather up there, with very little wind; Dodie said it's always been windy the times she'd been up there) we headed back down. I slipped a few times off the trail, and that's when I really appreciated being with other people (I usually go solo). We finally got back to our cars around 5pm. Peter said he was going to his cabin and take a few Motrin; I was pretty wiped out. But when I got back to Faranuf I still had enough (barely) energy to get the sunset; first looking at False Portal Peak -- 

Then over to Silver Peak, our destination that day --

Tiring, yet totally worthwhile -- Silver Peak, and the trail to the top, is one of the top destinations in the Chiricahua Mountains.