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| Hiking | 9.57 Miles |
2,340 AEG |
| | Hiking | 9.57 Miles | 6 Hrs 30 Mns | | 1.47 mph |
| 2,340 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Brian and I left Tucson later than expected because of a bad accident on I-10. I was held up for 40 minutes in miserable traffic conditions and it was quite frustrating when we had a long drive and tight timeframe.
**NECESSARY VENTING: When are they going to finish the GD highway project at Orange Grove which seems to be taking forever!!?!??!?! It's been 2 years now and I think the whole thing is run by some crooked politicians who are pocketing the money. My trust in govt is at an all time low!!! Why is it that road projects in Mexico are done 10 times faster? (and that's definitely a corrupt Country) OK, back to the hike...
We didn't arrive until 10 am at the Fort Bowie trailhead. The Fort Bowie loop starts here and is a 3 mile scenic loop with historic sites to see. Our original plan was to hike Helens Dome, then Bowie peak, then do the historical "tourist" stuff before dark, since it was our first time to this area. It was just too much to jam into one day and have it be enjoyable!
From the trailhead, we followed the Ft Bowie loop trail for roughly 0.75 miles, then we turned right on the Butterfield trail and continued for about 0.6 miles. As I understand it, the Butterfield trail was an old postal courier route. Up to this point, the trails were in great condition and well maintained. Next, it was time to get off the trail and walk the ridgeline toward Helens Dome. We were not sure what to expect. We found many use trails which made the hike easier than we thought and fairly fast moving. For the next 0.6 mile segment we hiked up a step ridgeline and headed to the right to a saddle. At the saddle there was a barbed wire fence which we had to crawl under. After crossing the fence we had a pretty clear view of the summit. From here we hiked Southwest going up a steep slope and our goal was to get on the ridgeline heading toward the peak. It was not necessary to summit the peak to our Southwest. All we needed to do was curve around to the left of it. Once on the main ridgeline we found a use trail heading in the direction of Helens Dome. The trail took us to another barbed wire fence where we stepped over a low area. Next we kept following the use trail toward the peak.
We knew we needed to summit from the Southwest side of Helens Dome based on previous routes. It was quite steep getting to the base of the dome. Once there we curved around to the right (Southwest side) and found a single cairn in a channel leading up. We were able to climb the channel, then turn right in front of a pine tree, then climb up from there. In this area, a little higher up we saw a carin and then found a way to the summit. It was a bit tricky and we didn't go down the same exact way we went up. There are a few safe ways in my opinion and MANY dangerous ways. It wasn't very obvious where to go but we found a way that we knew we could handle. On the way up, we ended up needing to do a chimney climb up 2 opposing rock surfaces that were about 3 feet apart. We felt safe because there were good foot and hand holds and quickly made it to the next level where we were only 50 feet from the summit which was just a walk-up. At the summit we could see the higher Bowie peak and down below the historic old town of Bowie. Be sure to remember where you came from. It's hard to lose your orientation at the summit. We found a registry left by a boy scout troop around 1975 which was still there. The oldest entry we found was from about 1970 and the page were very faded and weathered. Those boy scouts back then we pretty tough. I was a boy scout in NY state and we never did anything close to this!
On the way down, we found a better safer way to go where we didn't need to do a chimney down-climb. We basically found a rock shelf that wrapped around which was 10-15 feet West of where we did our chimney climb coming up. There were a few dead trees on this shelf which we had to slide by carefully as there was a big drop-off to the right. Once we got down from that section, we went back down basically the same way, and arrived at the low saddle Southwest of peak 5572. Since we wanted to the see the historic stuff, we decided to not cross the barbed wire fence but follow the ridgeline up and then down Peak 5572 to the historic cemetery. We did summit Peak 5572 along the way.
We got down to the cemetery around 4:30 pm, went inside, and took some photos. The oldest gravestone was from 1867, I believe. We were surprised that there were some babies and young kids buried there and even some graves that said "unknown person killed by the Apaches". I was surprised that there was some Apache's buried there also, such as Geronimo's son, and some children. I guess there were times of peace where everyone got along and times of war where nobody got along.
We continued on the Ft Bowie trail toward the visitors center, stopped to take photos of the ruins. We got to Apache spring, the only known water source in the entire area and ran into a coatimundi. We haven't seen one of those in a long time. It took off and went up a tree. The ground near the spring was wet but not overflowing with water. We wondered how an entire village survived on this little amount of water but perhaps it was more abundant years ago.
Along the road, we found more brick construction in ruins. We were surprised to see that some of the brick sections were covered in concrete to preserve the construction. What's the point of covering it up if nobody can see under it??? We made it to the visitor's center and it was after 5 pm by that time so it was closed. There was a water fountain which we drank from. The water was great! It was starting to get dark. We thought about taking the return trail, which goes up a hill and offers some nice views of the whole area. But, since it was already dark, we decided to just take the main trail back.
Note: We also summitted peak 5572 on the way down from Helens Dome to the Ft Bowie historic area.
Stats:
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Distance (round trip): 9.57 miles
AEG: 2340 feet
Strava moving time: 4 hrs 27 mins
Strava elapsed time: 8 hrs 3 mins |
| _____________________
Michael Williams
IT Professional
Rocky Point Vacation Rentals
Ocean Front Condo in Rocky Point, Sonora, Mexico
www.beachfrontmexico.us
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