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| Sycamore Campground Area, AZ | |
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| | Sycamore Campground Area, AZ | | | |
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Sycamore Campground Area, AZ
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| Car Camping | |
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| | Car Camping | | 1 Day | | |
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| no partners | | This was a quick trip over to an old favorite place in the western Chiricahua Mountains. I was waiting for a time when thunderstorms were not in the forecast late in the season, so this fit the bill. I was a bit curious how things would look, especially since some really heavy rain events had occurred in the previous week. Boy howdy! Water everywhere with strong flow in Turkey Creek. 
Earlier this year when I was camping at Cochise Stronghold, I struck up a conversation with a forest service employee who was making the daily rounds at the various campgrounds in the Douglas Ranger District. I mentioned I really liked it over at Sycamore CG in the Chiricahua Mountains, and he said that was his favorite. He said that since the Horseshoe 2 Fire of 2011, there has been some pretty serious debris flows in that canyon. I told him I knew that from some previous visits. My last visit was in 2016, but he told me there was a really big flood event in there in late summer of 2017, bigger than the previous ones. He said it damaged the road in places near the Morse Canyon trailhead! I was curious of course, and sure enough, it was pretty much a debris field along the creek from Sycamore to the end of the road. What a mess. The camp site along the creek that Angela and I enjoyed back in October 2011 was totally wiped out.  And even back at Sycamore CG there is such a jumble of debris that it is a bit tricky to get back to old abandoned part of the campground. Regardless, it is still a pretty awesome area in my opinion. 
There was nobody camping there when I arrived, and no cars drove in during the evening, which I found a bit surprising considering it was a Friday. Just me. A deer came through to do a little foraging in the evening and again in the morning, otherwise quiet on the animal front. This campground will always have a special place in my heart, since it is the first place I ever car camped, and is the place where I had two mountain lion encounters (30 years apart )!
I slept well and enjoyed dozing off to the sound of the creek. Morning low was 53 degrees. For some reason I didn't feel well in the morning, just aching all over and with a little more knee pain than usual, plus a little trouble with my balance.  This made me call off my planned loop hike of Mormon Ridge/Canyon like I did with Angela back in 2011. Don't know what was going on, but I feel fine today.
Here are some videos of stream action around the campground:
[ youtube video ]
[ youtube video ] |
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Wildflowers Observation Moderate
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