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| Limestone mountain Chiricahuas, AZ | |
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| | Limestone mountain Chiricahuas, AZ | | | |
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Limestone mountain Chiricahuas, AZ
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| Hiking | 5.54 Miles |
1,942 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.54 Miles | 5 Hrs 30 Mns | | 1.39 mph |
| 1,942 ft AEG | 1 Hour 30 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | It was a long drive to get to this location from the Tucson area. We ended up taking I-1 East, exited at Benson and took US-80 East through Tombstone. Then, we turned left on David road and took that to US-191 South, went through the North side of Douglas and connected up with US-80 again. See my directions below. At our starting point we found a great place to camp which had a huge boulder with a flat surface on top that made a great table. We parked our vehicles around 11.15 am and because it was so close to lunch time, we ended up waiting a bit and eating our lunch before the hike.
We started hiking in the direction of the ridgeline. We accidentally ran into the same road we were on which headed South. This road isn't a bad way to go for the first few hundred feet because it crosses a few washes cleanly and stays not far from the ridgeline we wanted. There was evidence of cattle in this area and I believe we heard cows to the South & East of us. We saw a lot of limestone along our route and could easily understand why this was called Limestone mountain. The limestone basically continued to the top. The shapes and eroded areas were interesting.
We followed cattle trails up for the first portion of the hike and then these seemed to turn into a hiker's route. The use trail seemed to follow the ridgeline most of the way. Quite often we needed to weave around brush or rock formations, but the terrain was fairly easily walkable but sometimes a bit steep.
Along the way we found Rocky mountain zinnia (a yellow flower), Lady's bedstraw, pincushion cactus, fishhook cactus, fragrant snakeroot, evergreen sumac (which we originally thought was lemonade berry), threadleaf ragwort, toothleaf, candelabrum cactus, gray vervain, and California bur.
Regarding evergreen sumac: Remember! Poison sumac - which grows in the Eastern US — has white or gray berries, where edible sumac has red, brown, purple or maroon fruit. I ate several of the dark red / maroon berries and 4 days later I'm still alive and feeling fine!
Near the top we saw a large metal tank that was empty. We found a rock pile at the summit which contained a registry. The registry was not in great condition but I was able to photograph all of the readable pages. We hiked down using basically the same route that we took to get up.
After getting back down to our parking area, we decided to camp there since it was a great spot. After dark we heard a bull making some strange loud noises that was a few hundred feet away. The noise continued for about 30 minutes or more and then the bull left the area. He may have been mad that we were invading his space. But, then he may have realized he had a huge number of acres of privacy!
Stats
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round trip distance: 5.54 miles
AEG: 1,942 feet
strava moving time 3 hrs 54 mins
strava elapsed time 5 hrs 34 mins
Driving directions
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(high clearance required for final 8.5 miles)
From Douglas, AZ...
Head northeast on AZ-80 E for 29 mi
Turn left onto N Rucker Canyon Rd / Tex Canyon Rd
continue for 8.4 miles, staying on the main road
Note: after 6.7 miles you will enter forest service land and there should be a sign indicating this
turn left on unmarked road, continue for 0.13 miles and look for a parking area on your right.
This is also a great place to camp.
See the start of my route. |
| _____________________
Michael Williams
IT Professional
Rocky Point Vacation Rentals
Ocean Front Condo in Rocky Point, Sonora, Mexico
www.beachfrontmexico.us
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