Miller Peak Via Ramsey Canyon

My first hike of the season, the 9460-foot Miller Peak in the Huachuca Mountains. 12 miles round trip and only about 3,000 feet of elevation gain. Unfortunately, I showed up with my 950-foot Des Moines lungs so the air was a bit thin at 9,461 feet. 

My good friend and hiking pal, Ira, right.

Joe's Canyon-Yaqui Trail to Mexico

Last hike of the season, a return to Joe's Canyon Trail, in the Coronado National Monument, with a side trip down the Yaqui Trail to Mexico. No need for a passport to cross over here. What's amazing about Mexico is how free from ugly development it is. It's quite unlike the Arizona desert, pock-marked by the detritus of quashed, ill-conceived 19th- and 20-century aspirations. 

This is what we should be erecting on the border.

Note the laser-straight border cut through the manzanita, bear grass, mesquite, and cacti clear to the horizon. 

Cochise Stronghold

Hiked the beautiful Cochise Stronghold Trail yesterday with the Mule Team, a short six-mile hike through some serious orogeny. Here’s some commentary I had with my Facebook pal, Steve:

Steve: This is not the famous 'Laramie Orogeny,' of course, which is one of my favorites. On account of the sound of the words. Say them out loud. I don't know about you, but I get an undefined but real pleasure out of it. All right, maybe that's abnormal. I don't care.

Me: Well, how do you feel about subduction?

Steve: Never experienced it firsthand, but I understand it's absolutely tectonic.

Me: It is rather up-lifting.