Santa Ritas – Mt Wrightson
Elevation: 9453 Feet
Starting Elevation: 5331 feet
Date: 03/26/2016
Time: 4 hours 40 minutes* (2 hours 35 minutes to the top, 25-minute
break on top, 1 hour 40 minutes down)
Steps: 25, 265
Miles: 9 round trip
* Please note that there is a good chance I am a lot faster
than you will be and most people should not use this number as a guide to how
long they will take. The guide I saw said it would be a 6-hour hike and
reviewers of the hike said they did it in 6.5 and 7 hours. This is not to brag;
I know a few people that are much faster than I am on trails and I am sure that
there are many more. But these people are serious trail runners with resting
heart rates in the 40s. Mine is a much more average 60 beats per minute, but
something about how I am built makes me a naturally good hiker. My co-workers
call me a billy goat. So on the off chance that someone outside of my family
and friends read this, there is a good chance you should add some additional
time to your plan.
I have decided to hike the tallest peak in every mountain
range in Arizona. I did not put a firm deadline to do this, but I have a
serious hiking goal coming up in two or three years that I am not quite ready
to make public knowledge and I would like to be over half-way through by the
time of that goal. I just googled the number of mountain ranges in Arizona and
Wikipedia believes that there are 210 named mountain ranges in Arizona. That is
exciting!
I got this idea today as I was hiking Mt. Wrightson for the first time. It is the tallest peak in the Santa Ritas and I have always meant to get to the top of it, but only managed to make a plan of it nearing the end of my 37th year. It really was a wonderful hike and all the way up I was thinking about how great it felt to be out in the crisp morning air and challenging myself at least a little. I was also thinking about this yet to be revealed goal and how I could get myself into a condition where it would be an achievable task. Thus the challenge of the tallest peak in each range was born. I did not know there were 210 ranges at the time . . . this sounds like a real challenge to be proud of when I achieve it.
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| Definitely a view I wish I had gotten to see sooner! |
I also decided that I would create an entry in here each time I got to the top of one of these peaks. Once again, I intend to update family and friends on here somewhat daily when I do this yet to be revealed challenge (as well as another that I hope to do in about 8 years). So I figured writing an entry for each peak I do in the meantime will be good practice.
These entries will not be focused on the mechanics of the
hike so they will not necessarily be a good read for those interested in tips
about each of the hikes. However, I did decide to start each entry with
statistics about the hike – because statistics are fun and I envision that I
will enjoy looking back at these entries and these statistics. The entries will
be more like a window into my brain at a moment in time when I afford myself a
lot of time to think about the world around me, where I am in it and where I
want to be in it. But there is sure to be a lot of talk about hiking and being
outdoors as well as a few interesting facts about the hike. So read on if you
so choose.
Mt. Wrightson is named after a GLO land surveyor that was
killed by Apaches just prior to an attack on Fort Buchanan. The fort was burned
to the ground and later abandoned. I found that information while doing some
research on the area for a survey we had to do for work. I thought it was all
very interesting and remember thinking that I wanted to do the hike even more
after finding that bit of history.
It really is a beautiful hike. I took the Old Baldy Trail
because it was the shorter of the options. I will almost certainly always take
the shorter more direct approach when given the option; even if it costs me a
few extra dollars. I am sort of known to be a bit frugal, but there is one
thing I value much more than money: Time. My time is extremely valuable. The
world is big and there is so much I would love to get to see and do. So much,
in fact, that I know I will never even come close to making a dent in that list.
Time is not on my side – but if there is something I can do to save a bit of it
for the next task at hand then I will be that much closer to getting to do or
see one more thing on my ever-growing list. That is priceless. So I gladly paid
the $5 fee to park at Madera Canyon.
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| Overlooking the valley that I spent much of my youth! |
The approach is from the west side, which would make it an
ideal choice for a summer hike. If you got up early enough, you could do 90 %
of the hike in the shade. Summertime in Southern Arizona puts a premium on
shade. I did get a very early start. I committed to meeting someone at 5pm so I
wanted to be sure I would be back with plenty of time to get to downtown Tucson
by 5pm. I go back and forth on whether I prefer an early or later start to my
hikes. If I get started early the trail will be less crowded and I can move
freely at my faster pace; plus, who goes for a hike to be surrounded by a crowd
of people? But when I start later, I end up getting to pass a lot more people
on the hike. It feels good to pass people on a hike. It makes me feel like I
might not be as close to the end of my summer years as I believe. Ultimately,
silence is solace. So I usually choose to go earlier if I have the option.
I made it up to Josephine Saddle easy enough and in very
good time. At that location there is a memorial for 3 boy scouts that got
caught in a freak blizzard in November of 1958 and died. Up until that point my
thoughts were mostly going over a predicament that I have put myself into. I
hesitate to go into detail on it here as it could cause some of you to look at
me a bit of bad light. If I don’t talk about it in the next paragraph, then I
have either decided not to or ran out of time and wanted to get the post up on
the same day of the hike. But now my thoughts turned to those three boys (ages
12, 13 and 16) and their families. I imagined the scar such a tragedy would
leave on a family and hoped that time had healed that scar at least a little.
At one time (and maybe it still is) it was the most intense search and rescue
effort that took place in Arizona. So I said a quick prayer for them and their
family and I was off again.
The remaining part was just a little more intense and steep,
but nothing crazy. The trail really is well maintained and the occasional down
trees to hop over were the only minor obstacles. I was very content. More
content than I have been in a long time. I really believe I was made to hike
mountains.
I have just started reading my great-great-grandma’s
autobiography. What a wonderful gift that is to her descendants! I have decided
that everyone should attempt to write down the story of their life for their
family. What a great window into the late 1800’s it has been! I see a bit of
myself in her and her father. Both were fascinated by the outdoors and I find
myself relating a lot to how she describes her outdoor adventures. Her dad was
a very solitary person too; which I can relate to as well. I spent a lot of the
remaining hike up to the top thinking about her, her father, autobiography and
the idea of writing down my own story (that is the other reason I decided to
write these entries – that way I can look back on them and find the pertinent
information to write my story when the time comes.
So I made it to the top and spent a little bit of time
enjoying the view; it always amazes me just how far you can see in Arizona if
you have the right vantage point. Then I found shelter from the wind behind the
old foundation of a fire look-out of another life and time and thought a bit
more about my great-great-grandma’s adventures. I wonder if she could have even
imagined that some of her descendants would have found their way out west and
found an equal love of a very different nature than the rural Illinois
landscapes of which she was so fond.
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| The archaeologist in me appreciated that the foundation to the fire look-out was still there :) |
Until next we meet . . .
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