Back Road Adventure

In a cool spring morning, Mahlon MacKenzie was in his corral with a bruised pony. The fivemonth-old paint had wandered into thick brush near Happy Valley, tangled itself in a fence, and ended up with nasty gashes up and down its rickety legs.

HAPPY VALLEY: AN ISOLATED WILDERNESS JUST AROUND THE CORNER

MacKenzie held the filly with a blue bridle while a Mexican vaquero peeled open the thick skin of an aloe and gently smeared the mucuslike pulp onto the pony's raw wounds.

"It's an old-fashioned remedy," MacKenzie said, "but it works." Then he pressed his fingers on the filly's lower lip to force its mouth open so he could give it a squirt of an antibiotic. That would prevent infection until the aloe could work its miracles on the surface wounds.

This episode was played out a few feet from the unpaved road that leads to Happy Valley on the east side of the Rincon Mountains. It's a place that, from the ground, appears wild and scenic, a jumble of granite boulders, winding creeks, and huge oak, ash, and cottonwood trees below Mica Mountain and Rincon Peak.

Seen from the air, however, Happy Valley is so close to Tucson that the uninitiated might think of it as a suburb. If you're heading to this area, resist such thoughts and proceed as though you are entering a distant wilderness.

The back road into Happy Valley is easy enough to traverse with a high-clearance vehicle, but in some ways it can be misleading because Tucson, a city of a half-million people, seems just around the corner.

In terms of miles and time, that may be true, but Happy Valley is still a nearly unpopulated spot in an isolated canyon. If your car bottoms out in one of the many spots where the road crosses Ash or Paige creeks, you might be there longer than expected.

The unpaved road that winds into Happy Valley begins at the J-Six Ranch Road/Mescal Road Exit off Interstate 10, about 40 miles east of St. Mary's Road in Tucson (and about 10 miles west of Benson). When you leave the highway, head left (north). Before the turn of the century, most of this country to the north and south of the highway was grazed by cattle owned by Walter Vail, who also had a silver mine in the nearby Empire Mountains. The pavement ends 1.4 miles north of the highway and after about another mile crosses the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. About a mile from the tracks, there is a sign for one of Old Tucson's outlying motion-picture sets. You can see the small artificial Western town in the distance.

Back Road Adventure

Some of the final episodes of "Bonanza," the television series, were filmed at the outlying Mescal set. The place is not open to the public.

Mescal is the Spanish word for the yucca plant, which grows in abundance between the movie set and the interstate highway. However, two miles beyond the film location, small hills appear, and gnarled mesquite trees gradually replace the yuccas.

Another mile and a half farther on, you will encounter the first and best crossing of Ash Creek. The road has been raised slightly above the creek bed and paved.

In late spring the creek is likely to be dry. During summer rains, or early spring when snow melts off the higher elevations in the Rincons, water will course across the road.

Less than a mile north of the creek, the cutoff for Ash Canyon Ranch, a working cattle operation, is on the left. Continue straight. In the next 0.1 of a mile, the road crosses the creek twice, and the first of several primitive campsites appears on the right, adjacent to Ash Creek.

MacKenzie's ranch is on the left, directly alongside the road, just beyond the first campsite. At this point, the stunted desert scrub has given way to giant cottonwoods and sycamores.

The road narrows as you pass the ranch. In places, the cotton-wood, oak, ash, black walnut, and Arizona sycamore recede toward the base of the mountains. The road is bordered by red-barked manzanita bushes which, in late February and March, are covered with tiny pink blossoms.

About five miles north of MacKenzie's ranch, the road climbs a small hill that separates the Ash and Paige canyon drainages. From the crest, the grassy terrain of Happy Valley can be seen to the left (northwest). To the right, the small domes of the Little Rincon Mountains appear. The tall ridge straight ahead is the craggy outline of the Galiuro Mountains. In the fall, the cotton-wood trees below blaze red and orange.

At the bottom of the hill, a cement stock tank sits on the right side of the road. Soon after, the road cuts through the middle of a wide pasture and some ranch buildings.

There is a small adobe house about 100 feet off to the right. The rear portion of the house was originally known as Hard Cabin. When Walter Vail ran cattle through this area in the late 1800s, a cowboy named Ned lived in the cabin with his wife and children.

One-tenth of a mile beyond the pasture, a large sign appears on the left side of a road that leads to the Miller Creek Trailhead into the Rincon Mountains. Up to this point, you have been driving through the Coronado National Forest. The Miller Creek Trail that begins in the national forest leads, after 1.5 miles, to the eastern boundary of the Saguaro National Monument.

From the trailhead, it is a steep five-mile walk to Happy Valley Saddle and eight miles to Rincon Peak (elevation 8,482 feet). If you hike to Happy Valley Saddle, keep in mind that while you may find some water in the creek near the bottom of the trail, there usually is none at the saddle or at Rincon Peak (though you might encounter some snowmelt).

It is 2.3 miles from the cutoff for the Miller Creek Trailhead to an unlocked gate, a good place to end your excursion and have lunch in the shade of the thick walnut and sycamore trees along the stream. At 3.3 miles from the cut-off, a locked gate marks the end of the road,

TIPS FOR TRAVELERS

Back-road travel can be hazardous if you are not prepared for the unexpected. Whether traveling in the desert or in the high country, be mindful of weather and road conditions and make sure you and your vehicle are in top shape and you have plenty of water.

Don't travel alone and let someone at home know where you're going and when you plan to return.