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| | | China Peak & Cochise Peak, AZ | | | |
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China Peak & Cochise Peak, AZ
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| Hiking | 11.33 Miles |
2,645 AEG |
| | Hiking | 11.33 Miles | 5 Hrs 32 Mns | | 2.14 mph |
| 2,645 ft AEG | 14 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | To say my debut hike in the Dragoons did not disappoint would be an understatement… it’s very possible that if I were to go through my peak list and separate them by range, the Dragoons would come out among my top 3 favorites in AZ; enough said! Friends have been telling since I moved to Southern AZ just over 4 years ago that I need to check out this range, and today was the day I finally got around to doing so. With a drive of just 59 minutes from door to parking spot, I feel like I’ve been living under a cave for the past 6 months for not have hit up these sensational mountains sooner… (or maybe AZ is just that awesome :cool:)… or perhaps a little bit of both.
At any rate, I kicked things off from a small pullout area located right at the start of FR 697, right off the incredibly accessible Middlemarch Road, [which is perhaps one of the nicest dirt roads leading in to a mountain range that I’ve ever driven]. A low clearance vehicle could make it easily to within about 1.5 miles of where I parked, at which point the road becomes slighter “rougher”, involving a handful of spots that would be on the tougher side for low clearance [but still ridiculously easy for any HCV]. FR 697, on the other hand, has several spots that will likely flip [and/or destroy the underside of] any jeep / truck that is not further equipped with some serious enhancements for off-trailing / extremely rugged road conditions… and I do mean serious enhancements… the feces sections start very near the beginning; and the finale, [about 1/2 mile before the terminus atop China Peak], is so steep that it almost flipped me. 
The sensational views begin before even reaching the parking spot, as the area of Sheepshead and the gazillion other awesome rock/”dome” formations are approached; and they continue for pretty much the entire adventure. The two peaks I did [China Peak & Cochise Peak] had some of the nicest views, but equally awesome were the views along the stretch of FR 697 from just past mile 1 [where the many craggy / dome rock formations suddenly pop into view, to just past mile 2 [around where the road goes up to some massive rocks and the takes you though an area where the massive rocks had been blasted to make room for the road. Shortly after this area, [and just before FR 2002 takes off on the right], there is an area to the left that has the remains of what appear to be at least three separate foundations.
Next, FR 697 starts to ascend an area with lots of mines. I did my best to stay on the this road, [and did a fairly good job of it], but there were so many minor roads/paths leading up to the many mines in this area that I ended up getting slightly off track in a few places and simply bushwhacked toward my destination [China Peak] in these areas. The road terminates on the summit of China Peak, and I’m curious as to why this portion of the road it is shown only on the older, CalTopo and not on FS Topo, given that the end of the road it is not at all overgrown; and, [although exceptionally pooey], is still an extremely well-defined jeep road. Oddly enough, the many mines I spotted [that are located above the 6,600’ contour, en route to China Peak], are not shown either; so my best guesses as to why FS Topo does not show the last little bit of this road are]: a) honest map error; b) “political pull” from whoever owns the mines to leave off the last little part of the road; c) for safety reasons (to deter all the dumbasses who might otherwise attempt to drive to the top of the peak in their jeeps/trucks with stock tires… ).
I had a short but extremely enjoyable visit atop China Peak. The bees had been buzzing / flying around quite a bit toward the beginning; but thankfully there were none on the peak; and the ones I encountered during my adventure were fortunately quite docile, completely ignoring me at best and giving me a quick, mildly unhappy buzz at worst, [but never anything where I felt the need to hike with bee spray in hand, let alone use it]. I was unable to find a register on China Peak but spotted on nice survey marker just a few feet away from the highpoint.
My descent off China Peak was very easy thanks to some well-blazed routes, [and in many places there were many good routes to choose from]. While there were a few brushy spots, it was almost all upper-body type of brush; the ground visibility was luckily good to fair. After around 1/2 mile, I connected with another jeep road [FR 345A], which I took for just under a mile before beginning my ascent to Cochise Peak via a short ridge to its SW. I was extremely tempted to follow a road leading up toward UN 7010, [which is not shown on the topos but is clearly defined on satellite imagery as well as ‘in person’]. This road takes off right around where I connected with FR 345A / right near Pear Tank]. From both satellite imagery and ‘in person’, it then seems to peter out mid-way up, before reaching the ridgeline that connects UN 7010 & Cochise Peak. This ridgeline looked like loads of fun, and it took a huge effort on my part not to go bounding up; but I was really trying to be as safe as possible now that snake season is in full swing, and taking the jeep road to the base of Cochise Peak definitely minimized the portion of off-trail that involved lots of tall grass & small rock piles with less than perfect visibility. Even my short ascent of just under 1/2 mile, [which would have been loads more fun a month or two ago without having to be as concerned about snakes], definitely had me on edge for much longer than ideal [due to the snake potential]; and had it not been for the many, well-beaten deer routes, it would not have been at all ideal during snake season.
Luckily, I made it to the summit without an encounter. I headed for the North end of the summit first, which is the lower end; but it had much better views, encompassing some excellent views of some of the rock crag / dome formations [which were completely blocked from the actual highpoint / Southern summit]. The highpoint, however, had views of some other nice peaks that were not visible from the Northern summit; and the views from both summits were stunning. There was a summit cairn, along with a register that was in horrendous condition: a supplement bottle, with the top part broken off, such that what remained of the log was completely exposed to the elements and would get drenched with each rain/snowfall. The main log consisted of what appeared to have once been a super mini-sized note pad. The writing in places was surprisingly still very readable, but I made no attempt to uncurl it because it was extremely frail thanks to the weather damage. There was also a much more recent business card that someone had left, and it appears that most of the recent sign-ins were taking place on the business card, thanks to the incredibly poor condition of the main log. I squeezed my name on the biz card; and then, [although the peak was about as easy as it gets for off-trail], I decided to do some much needed, ‘register duty’, not wanting to turn my back on a register that was clearly in dire need. I broke out the new empty Juvo container that I was using to store my SOS device, headlamp, and cell phone recharger; and I took the old log book along with the biz card and pen and put them inside. Although the lid of the new container was completely functional, I figured I would add yet another layer of security by putting the container in a sealable plastic bag. The only area where I fell short [yet again] was having even just one sheet of paper on hand that I could leave… but I did have some clean paper towels in my pack, and decided to leave a couple in the event the next several folks to summit don’t have anything better to write on.
Just before leaving the peak, I decided to add an extra rock to the summit cairn in order to secure the new register container since it was considerable bigger than the old, broken one. Conveniently, there was a medium size rock that was the perfect sized laying about a foot or two from the base of the summit cairn. As always, I overturned the rock with care... and this time it definitely paid off…! I guess you could say I allowed the summit scorpion of Cochise Peak to have a human encounter, [and probably gave it the scare of its life in the processes]. Aside from attending one of those night, ‘scorpion hunt hikes’ at the San Tans when I first move to AZ, this is the first scorpion encounter that I can recall while hiking… and definitely the first scorpion encounter I’ve had: a) on the East side of the Santa Ritas; b) above 6,775’; c) on a summit… and while on the topic of “firsts”, I’m still trying to decide which encounter should take the prize for the day’s weirdest: the summit scorpion atop the 6,797’ Cochise Peak… or the massive Wolf Spider that ‘welcomed’ me the moment I’d set foot INSIDE my home & shut the door that evening…!
Thankfully, [as far as the hike was concerned], the remainder was relatively uneventful: after about 1 mile or so into my bushwhack descent, [which was very easy and luckily had visibility ranging from good to fair], I encounter a trail/jeep road not shown on the topos. It was extremely well defined and ran along the ridge toward UN 6217, paralleling the jeep road below [FR 345A] that I had originally planned to take. Traveling along the ridge offered some sensational views, and shortly after the trail/jeep road petered out, there were some well-defined routes that lead me the short distance back over to FR 345A. About 1/3 of a mile after later, I connected with Middlemarch Road, which I took for a little under 3 miles to get back to my vehicle. Originally I was planning to hit up Black Diamond Peak as well on the way back, but with such a late start it just wasn’t worth the rush to squeeze in that late in the day. About 1.25 miles from my Forester, I made a very brief stop to check out a neat windmill, located near the Duran Well. There were small rungs/holds, [similar to rungs on a ladder], to climb to the top; and it was very, very tempting… but with some bees in the area who seemed to be minding their biz [AND being out there alone], I decided it was best to just head back. It was still a very solid adventure overall, and I’m psyched to have ‘discovered’ such an amazing range that is so close to home. |
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| God save the Prom Queen, cuz [reality check!] AEG's King...! |
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