Hike of the Month

HIKE OF THE MONTH The Huachucas Remain One of Arizona's Least Traveled History-Rich Mountains

Like good highland whiskey, some mountains gain character with age, taking on the qualities of those things with which they come into contact — and just as scotch glows golden from oak barrels and smoky from peat fires, a mountain's flavor can be enhanced by the people who lived and died amongst its deep canyons and high crests.

The Huachucas are like that, I thought as I passed the umpteenth agave plant squatting like a head of lettuce beside Lutz Canyon Trail. My mind always wanders when I hike, and the agaves sparked the liquor metaphor. For centuries certain species of the spiky-leaved woody plants (not cacti) have been harvested for both food and to produce that infamous hooch known as mescal. Along thelengths of Ash and Lutz canyons are signs of the vigorous mining activities dating from the Spaniards of the 1700s, and I could easily imagine the miners taking advantage of the local mescaleros' brew.

The four of us — my husband and me and our friends Marty and Annette from Bisbee, rounded yet another switchback and came upon the rusted hulls of an old engineand ore processor. The two or so centuries of mining have permanently changed many of the canyons of the Huachuca Mountains, though not as negatively as one would fear. This is partly because the Forest Service has removed all but the largest of the mining trash and partly because the mountains themselves have a remarkable ability to reclaim the land.

What remains is just enough to hint at the legends and truths of centuries past: a pass, just wide enough for a man on horseback, that led through the mountains but was destroyed by an 1887 earthquake; a huge underground reservoir known as Huachuca Lake; a 13-ounce gold nugget found in Ash Canyon in 1911; and a cave that exited on the other side of the mountains and was used by the Apaches to escape Fort Huachuca's cavalry.We poked around the huge equipment, most likely hauled up the steep canyon by mules, and were grateful for the 1984 Act of Congress that safeguarded 20,000 acres of the Huachucas as the Miller Peak Wilderness and silenced those great pounding machines.

During our morning of hiking the short (2.3 miles) but very steep trail, we saw no one, a fact I found amazing given its quiet beauty and nearness to Sierra Vista's 32,000 people.

Our plan was to hike to the Black Bear Mine Tunnel, a 600foot-long horizontal shaft dating to 1879, but we had dallied too long at various historic sites and stopped often to scan the high cliffs for golden eagles. We had to turn back less than a mile short of the mine in order to get back to Tucson in time for a dinner date.The descent to the trucks was swift but enhanced by the incredible vistas: the San Pedro Valley 4,000 feet below and the eastward march of the mountain ranges like the Pedregosas, the Chiricahuas, and Sierra San Jose of northern Sonora.

As we drove north on State Route 92, skirting the eastern edge of the range, we took closer notice of its landform. The Huachucas are not a big range, but they are very steep and the canyons numerous and dramatic. And now we looked on them with the flavor of their past. I knew we'd be back, too, to savor more of one of Arizona's most interesting and least traveled mountains.

WHEN YOU GO

To reach Lutz Canyon Trail from Tucson, take Interstate 10 east to the Sierra Vista turnoff. Head south on State Route 90, which becomes State Route 92 after Sierra Vista. About 11.5 miles south of the Routes 92/90 intersection, turn right onto Ash Canyon Road. At 1.5 miles, this passable dirt road forks - take the right and at about .6 of a mile, park at the remains of a stone cabin; the trailhead is just up the road beginning at the Wilderness boundary fence.

This is a steep and dramatic trail that gets very narrow as it climbs up to meet Miller Peak Trail. The hike to Miller Peak, the high point of the Huachucas at 9,466 feet, is 4.5 miles and 3,500 vertical feet from the Wilderness boundary fence.

To inquire, contact Coronado National Forest, Sierra Vista Ranger District, 5990 S. Highway 92, Hereford, AZ 85615; (520) 378-0311.