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| Hiking | 7.97 Miles |
1,409 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.97 Miles | 5 Hrs 45 Mns | | 1.55 mph |
| 1,409 ft AEG | 36 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | Finally we found that elusive Autumn Color
Randy (rwstorm) sent me a PM last week asking me if I wanted to go along to Ash Creek in the Galiuro's, one of the Sky Island Mountains in South Eastern Arizona, for a season ending search for Autumn's elusive color. I'm still nursing a sore foot that has been bothering me for several months but I can't turn down an offer to see some Autumn color and Randy promised me that I wouldn't regret it, and as it turned out, he was right on the mark. After previewing triplogs from JJ, Eagle, Joe, Ron, Red Rocks and Mark, I could only hope that the trees hadn't shed their all of their leaves yet.
We met at a secure gas station parking lot east of Tuscon at 0730, I loaded my gear in his truck and we took off for a long day's adventure. It's a good thing that Randy remembered the route, cause I would have gotten lost any number of times, but we finally arrived at the entrance to the Ash Creek trail, grabbed our gear and hit the trail.
We hadn't gone far before we began seeing the color we were looking for, the bright yellow, gold, orange and red's that the Maple tree is so famous for lined the trail paralleling the dry creek and it only got better the further we went. The occasional glimpse of tall rugged cliff faces on the opposite side of the wash only added to the brilliance of the color that we were basking in. The gray clouds that had been gathering as we drove in, were now breaking up, leaving long white streaks in the Arizona Blue sky and a steady breeze showered us with red, yellow and gold leaves 
We took a break, Randy with his sore knee and me with my sore foot, to allow our aching joints to gather relief but soon we were on our way again. We finally made it to the Upper Spring Box where we decided that this was enough punishment to our lower extremities and made our turn-around to head back down to Randy's truck. On the way back to Tucson, we stopped at La Unica Tortilleria y Taqueria in Willcox for some excellent Mexican cooking (and a cold refreshing beverage) then the long drive back home.
Thanks for the invite Randy and thanks for driving to the trailhead, we finally got to see some awesome Autumn color 
The predicted cold front with high winds and rain potential may be the spoiler to this Arizona Autumn hot spot, but many of the Maple trees were still in the late stages of green which means that there could be more color available, so don't write this one off yet.
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Autumn Foliage Observation Substantial
Lots of Maple in their best Autumn brilliance and some are still in the green stage, so there's more to come folks. |
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| On every trip into the Superstitions, I find another Gold Mine. Today the mine was filled with Memories. I can not wait for the next trip. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
