hiking

CHALLENGING THE ESTRELLAS THE TOUGHEST MOUNTAIN HIKE

It came to me near the end of a solo two-week backpack hike through the Sierra Estrellas that solitude, wilderness, and raw nature aren't all they're cracked up to be.

My surroundings may have had something to do with it. I was shivering in a down sleeping bag curled around the thorny base of a paloverde. The tree was absolutely necessary. Without it I would have been blown down the rocky slope like a dried leaf. The wind, compressed by a keyhole saddle in the crest of the Estrellas, was so strong I could not stand upright.

Unable to sleep and as cold as I'd ever been, I could look down and see the lights of high-rise buildings in downtown Phoenix, even decipher the street systems stems and subdivisions.

"Why," I wondered for the dozenth time, “am I doing this to myself? What am I trying to prove? I could be down there in my

CHALLENGING THE ESTRELLAS

nice warm bed; I could see people and talk to them."

To cap it off, when I completed my long hike I couldn't even brag. The Estrellas, just 15 miles southwest of Phoenix, are a mystery to most people. Even those who know the location of the range have never been up close, much less hiked it. Why have so few persons ever hiked the Estrellas?

For one thing, there is no reliable source of water in the entire range. To hike the Estrellas, you have to pack in your water, which limits you to a stay of two or three days at most. Or you can do as I did — pack up water and food in advance and stash them in caches along the razorback ridge that makes up the twisting 25-mile length of the Estrellas. But once you begin your hike, you quickly learn the real secret of the Estrellas: incredibly rough and difficult terrain. Like most desert ranges, this one is low with its tallest peak, Montezuma, only 4,337 feet high. But the mountains make up for that in steepness. Butterfly Peak rises 2,600 feet from the floor of the bajada in the space of just two miles.

The slopes are a hiker's nightmare with loose baseball-size rocks everywhere. Where there are no cliffs or slopes of loose rock, cholla cactuses, especially the "teddy bear" kind (so called because it looks "furry" at a distance), bar your path. And once you battle your way to the top, you find a knifeedge ridge that is impossible to follow for any distance. Just when I found a clear, level place on the ridge, a set of pinnacles would rear up, forcing me to drop down the slope and take an exhausting up and down sidehill traverse Thick with cholla, saguaro, and paloverde, the boulder-strewn Sierra Estrellas present the hiker with a formidable challenge. DAVID H. SMITH Sunset accentuates a knifelike ridge running along the 25-mile length of the Estrellas. ADRIEL HEISEY Bathed in a luminous twilight glory, the Estrellas give no hint of the dangers they pose to the inattentive adventurer. DAVID H. SMITH to get around them. Or the ridge would pinch out into a jumble of rocks covered with thorny brush. Every day I spent hours sidehilling one side of the ridge until some cholla patch or loose rocks stopped me. Then I would have to climb up and over the ridge and sidehill the other side.

Often I found my route blocked by cliffs. Usually I dropped down into a canyon and then climbed the other side. One time, tired and growing desperate, I chanced a cliff, got stuck in a tight place, and had to make a terrifying rock climb to the top. As I lay flat, gasping for breath, my thigh muscles quivered and twitched like plucked harp strings. The hike began playing with my mind. I found myself talking out loud, giving myself little pep talks. I became acutely aware of my vulnerability on the range. Every time I took a step, I risked a slip or fall because of the treacherous terrain. A sprained ankle or a broken leg on that mountain would be fatal. No one would know where to look for me.

The torturous folds and twists of the canyons and each major canyon had a bewildering number of branch canyons were so complex that the only real progress I could make was by staying high. On some days, I had to bushwhack my way along the crest above some great canyon only to find at nightfall the 10 miles I had hiked follow-ing the U-shaped ridge resulted in almost no forward progress. One night, exhausted, I looked across the chasm toward my starting point that morning and realized I had advanced only about 600 yards.

What bothered me the most was the constant wind. The Estrellas seem to attract winds. The wave of upwelling air off the mountains is a favorite place for sailplanes to catch a thermal. But winds on the crest are magnified somehow, and unseen blasts often staggered me, usually just when I was in a very dangerous and awkward spot. In the keyhole saddles, these winds reached hurricane proportions. I found several airplane wrecks below the saddles, caused, I surmise, when pilots hit wind shears.

In 40 years in Arizona, I have been in, on, and over nearly every mountain range. And I rate the Estrellas as the toughest and most dangerous hike in the state.

But the mountains give you great, sweeping views on all sides, an occasional glimpse of bighorn sheep, and a lonely feeling of being the only human being on Earth.

WHEN YOU GO

The Sierra Estrellas can be reached from the east or west. From Phoenix, access is easier on the east or Gila River Indian Reservation side. Take 51st Avenue south through Laveen to the reservation. However, the tribe requires that all visitors or hikers first obtain permits.

From the west, or Rainbow Valley side, take Jackrabbit Trail south from Interstate 10. Turn left at Arlington Road and then right onto Rainbow Valley Road. Continue on Rainbow Valley Road To the pavement's end, then turn left onto Riggs Road (dirt), and travel east to the power line dirt road that parallels the Estrellas.

On the western boundary of the desert range is the BLM's 14,400-acre Sierra Estrella Wilderness. Access is limited to the Quartz Peak Trailhead just south of the intersection of Riggs Road and the power line road.

None of the dirt roads are marked, and all are subject to washouts and flash floods, so exercise caution.

Four-wheeled vehicles stocked with food, water, and tools are a necessity; we recommend traveling in a caravan of two or more vehicles with a cell phone for emergencies.

The Gila River Indian Reservation and the BLM share jurisdiction over the 25-mile-long mountain range. For information from the BLM, call (602) 580-5500. For hiking permits and the latest information on access from the Gila River Indian Tribe, call (602) 963-4323.