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HIKING ACROSS SAVANNAHS, DOWN ROCKY SLOPES, AND THROUGH TREE-LINED THICKETS IN THE

GALIURO WILDERNESS

A nearly full hunter's moon ris-es over Rattlesnake Canyon, grazing the tops of ponder-osa pines covering its rim. Moonbeams spotlight a sycamore that wandered into the pine-hardwood overstory, illumi-nating its bark with an argentine sheen. The cloudless blue sky pales as the sun ex-pends its last handful of rays and drops below the horizon.

Twilight, coupled with the remoteness of the Galiuro Wilderness, makes me feel as if I've entered another world. The peaceful atmosphere offers a much-needed retreat from a long day of backpacking into the Wilderness southwest of Safford. I had been warned about the trails in the Galiuros. Still, I never imagined such intense terrain; the steep canyon ridges took me by surprise. Chuck Duncan, a ranger with the Coronado National Forest who tours the 76,317-acre Galiuro Wilderness about four times a year, told me the trails are hard on beasts. On the way in, I saw half a dozen horse-shoes lost to the rugged trails. Some ani-mals have never made it out of the canyon due to injuries or inadequate endurance, Duncan had said. The rocky trails are hard on humans, too. Ankles take a beating on talus slopes, and steep grades strain the knees. Duncan said it's not unusual for hikers here to cut their trips short because of the difficulties. In ad-dition, trails are often overgrown, and it's easy to get turned around. Search and res-cue missions are not uncommon. Trails that coil across sunbaked mesas, into deep canyons, and over razorback ridges present a challenge even for this sea-soned hiker. Ah, but the rewards - such as entering Rattlesnake Canyon at twilight - are sweet. The big reward, however, is that the Wilderness is rarely visited. And no wonder. The area has never been readily ac-cessible, or user-friendly.

In the mid-1500s, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, in search of the fabled seven cities of gold, merely brushed past the eastern flanks of this desert range. Pioneer mission-ary Father Eusebio Francisco Kino stayed in an Indian village just west of the range, near Mammoth, 150 years later. Otherwise the Galiuros were pretty much ignored. Even the Indians became mostly tran-sient guests. The Jocomes, possibly related to the Apaches, could have been native res-idents, and the Aravaipa Apaches hunted in the mountains.

Jim McDonald, forest archaeologist for the Coronado National Forest, told me there are no Indian relics that he knows about in the Wilderness and adds there'sbeen very little research done regarding Indian history. "It seems," McDonald said, "to have been

I COULD ALMOST HEAR THE CLIP-CLOP OF HORSES RIDDEN BY DEPUTY U.S. MARSHAL FRANK HAYNES, SHERIFF MCBRIDE, AND DEPUTY SHERIFFS MARTIN KEMPTON AND KANE WOOTEN ON THE SMOOTH RIVER ROCKS WHERE THE TRAIL CRISSCROSSES RATTLESNAKE CREEK.

a very lonely place for quite a while. Little goes on back there. It's mostly high forest elevation, which was never occupied. Most of what has been discovered in the Wilder-ness are historic sites of miners and home-steaders." The prospect of gold drew Anglos to the San Calisto Mountains, when the Galiuros were known as such, at the turn of the cen-tury. In 1902 a quick kiss of civilization was planted in the heart of the mountain range at Rattlesnake Canyon. Prospects of gold birthed a short-lived community of miners' cabins, a bar, and even a bordello. How-ever, within a couple of decades, human history mostly ended in a shoot-out at a cabin owned by the Power family. More about that later.

Chuck Duncan succinctly summed up the Wilderness' personality. "It's a rugged but very beautiful place," he said. "You get kind of a weird feeling back in those mountains. It's probably be-cause they are so natural a wilderness. It couldn't be changed. Man tried to do it, but couldn't."

And that was the carrot that had enticed me to do a solo hike in the Galiuro range: its wildness.

Resting at Powers Garden, named after the notorious Power family that lived there for about eight years before moving to a cabin five miles down canyon, I reflect on my nine-mile traverse along the Tortilla and Powers Garden trails.

The trails scrambled across savannahs, plunged down impossibly rocky slopes, dug through pine and oak thickets, and chiseled their way through stair-step rocks. They slogged a thousand feet up to an en-chanting chasm of strange rock spires and fins, then slid pell-mell just as many feet down into dark forested and almost spooky Horse Canyon, which feeds into Rattlesnake Canyon.

All along the trails I saw signs of mountain lions and bears. The Wilderness is prime habitat for both and, in fact, has the highest concentration of mountain lions in Arizona. With Mexican wolves and grizzly bears, their only natural predators, extirpat-ed from the area by the mid-20th century, mountain lions have flourished on wild mammals and, to the ire of local ranchers, occasionally calves.

Nevertheless, the bear scat outnumbered any lion signs. The Galiuros' large areas ofchaparral scrub are magnets to bears, sup-plying their favorite food: manzanita berries. The bears obviously had a feast along the Tortilla Trail. I found myself walking more circumspectly after finding some fresh scat, half expecting to run into a bruin around the next turn of the trail.

But here I sit, unscathed by bear or lion, just soothing sore and weary muscles in the cool of the evening. Tomorrow I will continue down Rattlesnake Canyon, then climb the ridge separating it and the head of Kielberg Canyon where Jeff Power, his two sons, Tom and John, and a friend, Tom Sisson, lived and mined for gold. I'll see where the shoot-out, coined the Tragedy of the Galiuros, took place.

As I start my hike through the forest-ed corridor of Rattlesnake Canyon, there's no way I can keep my presence a secret. Stellar's jays herald my passage past every tree they have claimed for their territory. I wonder if the men in the Power posse woke the jays while on their nocturnal journey to the men's cabin. I could almost hear the clip-clop of horses ridden by (PRECEDING PANEL, PAGE 4, ABOVE) A Sonoran mountain kingsnake traverses the forest floor in the rugged Galiuro Mountains. (PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 4 AND 5, BELOW) The distant Santa Rita Mountains and the Aravaipa Creek drainage bisect this view north from the top of Kennedy Peak in the Galiuros. (OPPOSITE PAGE) New Mexico groundsel flowers brighten water-scoured rocks in the streambed of Rattlesnake Creek.

(ABOVE) Groundwater reaching the surface at Powers Garden Spring helps support a rich riparian community..

WHILE SURVEYING THE CABIN, MY BOOTS CRUNCH AND CRACKLE OVER SMALL ROCKS, NONE OF WHICH HOLD THE SLIGHTEST NUANCE THAT THERE MIGHT BE GOLD IN THE AREA.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Frank Haynes, Sheriff McBride, and Deputy Sheriffs Kane Wooten and Martin Kempton on the smooth river rocks where the trail crisscrosses Rattlesnake Creek. I wonder if they felt the same strange wildness that Ranger Duncan says everyone, including me, describes feeling in Rattlesnake Canyon.

Refrigerated by cold air channeling down surrounding peaks, Rattlesnake Canyon is the chilliest place in the Galiuro Mountains. Duncan said he's been the coldest ever in this canyon. I wonder how the Power posse was affected by the freezing temperatures that wintery evening. Or maybe their fervor kept them warm.

World War I was well on its way, and Tom and John Power had neglected to register for the draft so they could continue mining for gold. The patriotic posse was looking to arrest these "slackers." Some say, however, that the posse's real intention was to cause trouble. The brothers claimed they had never received their draft notices.

At first light, the posse reached the head of Kielberg Canyon, named after a pros pector who mined in the same area as the Powers. Smoke wafting from the cabin's stone chimney disappeared in the fogshrouded air. Two of the lawmen positioned themselves on the north side of the cabin; and the other two on the south side. Their presence set horses nickering and dogs barking and brought Jeff Power, armed with a rifle, to the front door.

Within a few minutes, and about 25 shots later, Jeff Power and three lawmen were dead. Marshall Haynes survived. Some say Power was shot without warning; others say the Power boys came out firing, ignoring shouted orders to surrender. In any event, it took 3,000 men almost a month to track down the fleeing Power brothers and Tom Sisson in Mexico and bring them back for trial.

Historian Marshall Trimble said the trial was more of a kangaroo court, and the case would have been laughed out of court today. Trimble, a relative of Deputy Sheriff Martin Kempton, says the Powers and Sisson acted in self-defense.

"There were antagonisms between the Powers and one of the lawmen who was killed," Trimble said. "The Powers were given no warning; the posse went in shooting. When the boys killed the lawmen, they knew the deck was stacked against them, and they ran."

The boys were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Relatives of the lawmen made sure they stayed in jail when any chance for parole came up. Sisson died at age 86 in prison, and the Powers served 42 years before finally being paroled in 1960 and pardoned by Governor Jack Williams in 1969.

While surveying the cabin, my boots crunch and crackle over small rocks, none of which hold the slightest nuance that there might be gold in the area. The Powers never did ship any ore out of their mine. The whole district produced only 163 ounces of gold. Recent U.S. Geological Survey studies show only trace smatterings of the metal the Power family gave up so much for.

Water in the Galiuros can sometimes be as elusive as gold. Chuck Duncan said there are only two reliable water sources in the Wilderness, and hikers rarely pass the opportunity to fill their canteens. Judging from the wildlife I see at each spring 1 pass, animals never miss the opportunity, either.

As I hike up Corral Canyon, which will eventually link with another trail and loop my path back to my jeep, there's an explosion of snapped tinder and a stampede over streambed rocks. This sets off an avian alarm of sweet magnitude. I stand still, hoping to spot the wildlife responsible for the upset. And then, to my left, a slight rustle, and a white-tailed deer practically tiptoes up the side of the canyon, trying, I'm sure, to remain as invisible as possible. Within 100 yards, I come to a gently flowing spring where the deer was probably drinking.

Continuing up the steep slope, I near the edge of the riparian cover that has sheltered me from an October sun that still hangs onto remnants of summer heat. I come to an outcropping of rhyolite and start to climb its rocky steps. There is a chain of pools just below the top, where I can top off my canteens.

I suddenly stop when I hear a loud whoosh, then cautiously continue climbing to see what is making the strange racket. It's a golden eagle fanning its wings at the sound of my intrusion. When I get a mere 10 feet away from the aquiline raptor, it flaps its great wings again, then takes off.

While pumping spring water into my canteens, I realize I am drinking from the same pool the golden eagle did. Right now, an experience like that is worth more than the eagle's weight in gold. Then I realize that's probably more than all the known gold in the Galiuros, and I feel like a very rich woman.

WHEN YOU GO

The Galiuro Wilderness is about five hours from Phoenix. Take U.S. Route 60 to Globe, where it turns into U.S. Route 70. Drive approximately 72 miles to the Klondyke/Aravaipa Road; a sign marks the turnoff. Proceed approximately 25 miles to the road to Klondyke and turn left. Go to Forest Service Road 253 (Deer Creek Ranch Road) and turn right at the turnoff sign. Continue 8.5 miles to the trailhead.

The best times to hike the Galiuro Wilderness are April and May and September through November. Snows hit by Christmas, if not before.

A high-clearance vehicle is needed if driving to the Deer Creek Trailhead; other trailheads require four-wheel-drive. Driving the clay roads leading to the mountains in wet weather is not recommended. The Forest Service advises both maps and a compass.

Useful maps include USGS Kennedy Peak, Arizona, and Bassett Peak, Arizona.

Because of the extreme remoteness of this Wilderness, don't travel alone and be sure to let someone know where you are going and when you will return.

Because human traffic is uncommon in the Wilderness, animals are abundant. Hang food out of reach of bears but don't keep it in tents. Be sure to camp a sufficient distance from water sources to respect animals' needs. Purify all water.

For more information about the Wilderness, contact the Safford Ranger District in the Coronado National Forest, P.O. Box 709, Safford, AZ 85548-0709; (520) 428-4150.