Week ending Dec 7, 2017 Safford

Friday, we noticed we have a little bunny that likes to hang out behind our trailer.  After breakfast we went to visitor info and then to the National Forest and BLM Office where we got a map of the Coronado National Forest from here to the Santa Catalinas north of Tucson .

On Saturday, we did the historic walking tour of Safford in the afternoon.  By the time we were done, a few floats for the Parade of Lights were lining up at the end of Main Street.  

Odd Fellows Home

Safford City Hall decked out for Christmas

Sunday we drove to Roper Lake State Park.   We started a walk with the  .75 mile Mariah Mesa trail, then walked a combination of trails and roadways to do the two miles around Roper Lake.

Roper Lake from Mariah Mesa Trail

We aw what was probably a great blue heron flying around a couple of times, but couldn't see it on the lake.  There were lots of ducks and gulls on the lake.   From the park there are good views of Mt. Graham. which is the dominant mountain in the area at 10,700 ft. 

Monday, we did the Coronado Trail, from Clifton to Alpine.  We stopped at Clifton's Visitor Center.  It was closed, but the staff were having a Christmas Meeting.  They saw us come up, and opened up for us.  We got some good information on the Coronado Trail, including highlights with milepost locations.

Morenci, on the north edge of Clifton, is home to a huge copper mine, one of the largest open pit mines in world .   You drive along the edge of the mine, watching the big trucks carrying ore out, as the road climbs from 3600 feet up above 5400 ft. 

The Freeport-McMoran copper pit at Morenci

 The Coronado Trail follows the edges of the hills for about 100 miles to Alpine.  Past the mine, it travels up to HL Saddle, at 7600 ft. From there it carries on to Blue Vista Overlook at about 9600 ft, looking down over deep valleys.   The speed limit is 30 mph most of the route, but a lot of the turns are only 15 mph.   There are about 400 switchbacks on the route.   Joan drove while John gripped the door grip going around the corners.   We couldn't believe how many trailers were in the forest campgrounds, as as it has to get quite cold at night at these elevations.  We lots of hunters scanning the hills with scopes, looking for game, so perhaps that is who is camping here now.


There are lots of hiking trails going off the route,  which are well marked.    We saw a few wild turkeys, but none of the elk, bear, deer or Grey Mexican wolves which were reintroduced into the area in 1998. 
  

west from Blue Vista viewpoint

East from Blue Vista

Then we carried on to Hannagan Meadow Lodge at 9100 ft.

Further on, in Alpine we changed drivers.

John drove back through New Mexico (the longer but faster route) through Luna, Alma and Glenwood, then back across just south of Clifton into Safford. 
 
Tuesday morning, we got a few drops of rain.  They have been hoping for rain here to top up the reservoirs.  It was cool, so we watched the Canadian Curling Trials most of the day.

Wednesday, we paid to stay in Safford for another week.   Then we went out for breakfast.  We asked someone where they would go, and the said that Denny's had the best selection.  They had some interesting seasonal specials.  Joan had 2 pancakes with a pumpkin cream sauce that she enjoyed.  John had orange cream sauce on 2 pancakes with cranberries baked in.  They were an 'interesting'  flavour, but won't be a favourite.   We took away the eggs, hash browns and bacon that came with them, and had them for lunch.

Mt Graham had a bit of snow on the peak. 

Snow on the peak of Mt Graham

We drove up to the Acadia Campground on Mount Graham, at an elevation of about 6650ft.

Arcadia Campground on Mt Graham

We could see snow on the peak from the valley, but we didn't see any at the elevations we got to. We put our flourescent coloured ski seats around our shoulders before we started walking, as we had seen hunters checking out the slopes on the way up the hill.      We followed a marked trail for about 3/4 mi. through a forest with of sycamores, oaks and pines.

Trail up from Arcadia Campground

Fall leaves from the white sycamore

The trail was supposed to be 2 miles to a junction, but it kind of disappeared around a tree along a steep slope above Noon Creek.  We might have been able to scramble up it but decided to turn around.     We did get some great views of the valley. 

View of the valley from Mt Graham

In the campground, we saw a bushy tailed squirrel and another one on the way back down.    which we found out at the BLM office was an Abert squirrel.  We also saw a deer cross the road ahead of us.   We were glad we had the exhaust brakes installed before we left Arrowwood, as they helped slow the truck coming down the winding road, minimizing how often we had to use the brakes.
We stopped at one place we had seen on the way up.

'Waterfall' along the road up  Mt. Graham

On Thursday morning, we went on-line to the BLM site to get a permit for Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness, one of only 3 BLM areas in the state for which you need a permit, to limit the number of people in the area.  Once we got the permit, we saved the page to print it on a flash drive, and took it to the BLM office to get it printed. While we were there, the lady on the desk told us that she had seen a bunch of coatimundi the last time she was in the canyon.   We headed northwest of town on hwy 70 past Pima, then turned onto Klondyke Road.  Klondyke Road had a lot of washboard on it for quite a while before it got a bit smoother.   There were a few ranches of the road in the rolling desert.

Klondyke Road

  

A lot of the hills here are covered in Prickly Pear cacti

After about 24 miles we got to Aravaipa Canyon Road, which follows Aravaipa Creek northwest to the Canyon.   The ghost town of Klondyke (spelled differently than its Canadian namesake), has only a few buildings.  Only the lodge looked like it might still be in use, but is for sale.    We carried on past a few more ranches, with the road gradually getting narrower.   We encountered some wild turkeys on the road.  

Wild turkeys

A bit further on we saw some javelina.

Javelina

 Getting close to the trailhead, the road goes through the creek 6 times.  

One of the creek crossings

We found the trailhead with no problem.  There were only two other trucks, one with a flatbed trailer, in the parking lot.   The 1.5 mi to the east entrance to the wilderness could have been driven by a 4x4, but it was recommended that we walk from this point.

Canyon wall

   

Late fall colors

Along the way we saw a couple of coatimundi, but couldn't focus on them quickly enough. 
We also saw a vermillion flycatcher.  We waded through the creek 7 times before we got to the entrance to the wilderness area.  Our target for the day was to find the Turkey Creek cliff dwellings.   We figured that they were only about another half mile up Turkey Creek.   We saw 4 white-tailed deer trying to hide in the narrow canyon without much success.  

Deer doing a good job of being invisible

After about a mile, we figured that we had missed the location of the dwellings, so we had lunch and turned back  (when we got back to the trailer, we looked up the information and found out we had turned back about half a mile too soon).   On the way back down the canyon, we heard rustling under the leaves, and saw  a long tail sticking up.   We couldn't get focussed on it, and then a coatimundi ran out from under the leaves.  A few seconds at a time, a bunch more ran out too quickly fo us to get a picture.   Fortunately, just before we got back to the truck, we saw a group of them clustered under a tree just off the trail.  These ones didn't see us right away, so we were able to get some pictures.    https://www.desertusa.com/animals/coatimundi.html   

Coatimundi, showing the long tail

Coatimundi

A great day for wildlife sightings.  

Once we got back to the truck, we decided to drive back to Safford through Bonita.   This route was about 20 minutes longer than Klondyke Road, but was the route recommended by our GPS.   It was a bit less gravel road, and not as much washboard, but took us around the south end of Mt Graham.  As usual, it's worth taking a different route back, as the scenery was a good.    Once we got back to the trailer, our first priority was to change into dry warm socks.

While the pictures for the blog were loading,  John disconnected our water hose and put it in the cabinet, since it is going down to 27F overnight, and then 31F the next night.