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| Brush Corral loop from San Pedro Vista, AZ | | -
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| | Brush Corral loop from San Pedro Vista, AZ | | | |
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Brush Corral loop from San Pedro Vista, AZ
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| Hiking | 4.66 Miles |
1,598 AEG |
| | Hiking | 4.66 Miles | 4 Hrs 5 Mns | | 1.85 mph |
| 1,598 ft AEG | 1 Hour 34 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | Felt the need to try something different. I’d generally avoided upper Green Mountain because of its apocalyptic vibe post-fire, but I like loops so I figured I’d check out a short loop using Brush Corral and the shortcut.
I did the loop clockwise, so descended Brush Corral. It was pretty steep, dropping into a drainage with a decent seep and some live trees. On the way I interrupted a Sonoran mountain kingsnake basking on the trail. It wasted no time zipping off the trail into the brush, but I got a photo out of the encounter so no complaints from me.
The trail then climbed up and followed a ridge for a bit, and got very rocky and scrubby. The terrain reminded me of some of the more crispified areas of the Chiricahuas, except the trail was pretty clear and well used (rather than “present…maybe”), and the views were nice but not spectacular.
On the other side of the ridge it dropped down into a dry forest with stunted pines. It wasn’t as badly burned so the pines were mostly alive, which was a nice change. It followed a dry drainage for a bit before climbing to the junction with the shortcut trail.
The lower shortcut followed a somewhat topsy-turvy route through dry forest. I found a shady spot sheltered from the wind for lunch before tackling the climb out.
By then it was early afternoon and the winds were pretty stiff at times. Mostly it was a nice breeze to keep things cool since there’s not a lot of shade on this itinerary.
The second half of the shortcut trail switchbacked steeply up a ridge to meet the Green Mountain trail. That section was a workout but it was short. So short I was surprised when the junction sign ambushed me out of nowhere.
I still had plenty of workout to do on Green Mountain though. The views got better as I went. The last mile there are lots of cool rock formations to look at, which were an effective distraction from the standing dead pines everywhere.
Other than the very pretty snake I saw a few birds and a lot of lizards, which probably explains why the snake was out. No wildflowers really, unless you like daisies enough to drop all the way down to the low point on this route. There were a lot of daisies in the drainage there.
I saw a few folks close to the trailhead but otherwise had the mountain to myself. |
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Wildflowers Observation Isolated
I saw some daisies… and then some daisies… and that was it. |
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