The Harquahala Mountains are located about 75 miles west of Phoenix and are visible north of Interstate-10, rising almost 4,000 feet above the desert floor. In 1920, a solar observatory was constructed on the summit and functioned for five years before being dismantled and abandoned. The few hardy workers and scientists lived atop the summit and relied on a mule team to provide supplies. A 5.4-mile long trail snakes up the mountain's north-facing flanks; it was originally constructed for the mule-teams and later adopted and maintained by the state and BLM. The summit's buildings were placed on the National Registry of Historical Places in 1975 and much of the mountain range was declared a wilderness area in 1990. The main building, which apparently housed both the equipment and residences, has decayed over the years but still stands, wrapped in corrugated tin and surrounded by a chain-link fence. It is too fragile and dangerous to allow people inside.

In 1983, the Central Arizona Project (CAP) constructed a modern radio transmission/gauging facility on the summit as part of its management of the hundreds of miles of canals running from the Colorado River and throughout the desert. A four-wheel drive road was built on the mountain's south face and is open to the public. Today it is known as the Harquahala Mountain Back Country Byway. The broad summit area holds the CAP buildings and solar collectors, a windsock at the summit itself, the observatory building, many informative signs, benches and a picnic table. The summit is often shared by hikers, jeepers and motor-bikers alike.

First Visit, April 1997: My first visit came simply as a result of curiosity about the mountain derived from the numerous trips I have taken along Interstate-10. I was not yet into county highpoints and none of my hiking guidebooks had much to say about Harquahala Mountain. The only strong plug I had seen was an article in the Arizona Republic newspaper. So, I decided to make a day-hike of this peak before the summer heat set in. I did some nominal searching on the web and came across information about the northern mule path, and set out to attempt the peak via that route. I left my home early in the morning and made the 100+ mile drive northwest out of Phoenix, past Wickenburg and the little burg of Aguila, and on to the La Paz county line sign. Here, I simply had no idea where to enter... but I picked a likely spot and went in anyway. I parked my trusty Saturn vehicle along the highway, hopped the fence and hiked in an old road about 2 miles until it started up the lower foothills. Then the road ended and I had no idea where to proceed, so I called it good and returned back to my car. I decided to scout the south side on my way home, following Salome Road. I noticed the road-cut high on the mountain and decided to give that route a go the following weekend.

A week later I got up early, followed Interstate-10 west about 75 miles to Salome Road at Exit-81, then went northwest along Salome Road nine miles to Eagle Eye Road. I went north along Eagle Eye for another 10 miles to the Harquahala Mountain Road sign, and drove in about 3 miles and parked where the road got a bit nasty for my low-slung passenger car. I then simply marched up the remaining 8 miles or so to the summit, following the road. Not too bad, but not too exciting either. There were some heavily eroded sections down low, sandy spots here and there, and crumbly crud up high, but in about 4 hours I had made the summit, where I relaxed and toured the various buildings. The weather was superb and very beautiful. Then... out the way I came in. In all, it took me about 7 hours to cover the 16 miles and about 3,000 feet of vertical. I was pretty beat when I got back to my car. And that was that for almost seven years. Then I met Beth and got married...

Second visit, February 2004: Previously we had only lightly discussed how we would approach this peak. I was willing to drive my truck up the road just for a fun day for four-wheeling. In other words, we had no real plan for this peak, other than we'd get around to it eventually. So, here it was, late on a Thursday just two days before Valentine's Day, which fell on a Saturday this year. I'm at work, browsing the web and come across a great site devoted to Arizona (mostly) hikes: Todd's Desert Hiking Guide. I get hot and bothered for a good hike and send Beth the URL. The planned route was probably just a bit longer and steeper than what Beth usually was used to, but she was totally up for this hike and she even went ahead and made the hotel arrangements in the town of Salome. Harquahala, here we come!

We left the Phoenix metropolis after work and made the 100-mile drive to Salome, following Interstate-10 to Salome Road and on into Salome. Salome (pronounced Sa-loam) is a little town of about 500 people along US-60. In the old days before I-10, US-60 was the main Phoenix-California highway, and a number of little towns sprung up along its fringes. Since I-10 was completed back in the 1970s, US-60 has remained open but sees just a fraction of the traffic it used to, of course... which is a good thing. The towns - Salome and Wenden are the largest, Harcuvar, Brenda, Hope and Aguila are the other principal places - are all in a state of arrested decay. Everything was built in the 50s or earlier, and looks it. It's a curious combination of quaint charm and near-collapse! The towns today do quite well as farming communities, and are popular with the RV and snowbird crowd. Alamo Lake State Park is nearby and attracts those inclined to fish. In any case, we stayed at the Scheffler's Hotel in Salome, built in 1942, for $35 a night. A pleasant little place, with old furniture and garish pink neon lighting. We checked in about 8ish, then went across the highway to the Salome Cafe for a meal. The food was good. It was an overall amusing evening: the waitress was a highschool girl who chatted it up with the three tables she was serving (ours included). One, she hates it in Salome. Too boring, hard to get dates. Two, she wants to either go to school in Yuma or become a corrections officer. Good for her. She has apparently grown up in Salome and as a result, her whole world view is defined by the confines of the little town. When one guy asked her where her high school was located, she said matter-of-factly "on School Road". Ah yes, of course, we all knew that. On top of all that, she had it out for her co-worker, a guy about her age who apparently wasn't doing his duties fast enough, and the lady who was the cook was also yelling at him, and he was yelling back, but not angrily. Just making their own Friday-night fun, I guess. We crashed back in our room about 10 pm.

The next morning we got a move on about 7:30 and drove 13 miles east along US-60 to a very non-descript gate along the highway that is the entrance to the trailhead for the hike. This is surely a trailhead that is not going to be found by accident. The gate is located at about milepost 70.4 (or, 4/10s a mile east of MP 70), on the south side of the road. A simple wire-crumple gate must be open and closed; there are no signs at the gate or along the highway mentioning this trailhead. Once inside, we went right and followed the road southeasterly 2.1 miles to a surprisingly developed trailhead. A simple parking area, pit toilet and information sign mark the trailhead, which is at elevation 2,320 feet. It was about 8 a.m. when we rolled up, and quite cold - probably right about freezing. The sun was still blocked by the Harquahala Range. We got moving at 8:15 a.m. and started up the trail as it went pretty straight. The hike starts literally on the desert floor; a unique situation considering most times a road goes partway up into the hills. Shortly we came upon a small sign marker detailing the original location of a garage where vehicles used to be parked and the mules loaded to start the trek up the peak. Nowadays there's nothing there except a metallic tank and numerous food cans and other trash items, obviously from that era. We continued up the trail as it steadily gained elevation - never too steep, always just about right. We took our first break at 9:15 and using GPS, noted our location. We had gained 1,000 feet and were just east of a prominent rock knob marked at 3,645 feet. We rested here about 15 minutes then got moving again.

From our first rest stop we followed the trail as it finally entered deep into the heart of the range and started zig-zagging up some prominent ridges. Again, the gradient was never too steep, and we made excellent progress. We passed a heavy stand of Saguaro cactus and took another breather at elevation 4,400 feet right about 10:15 a.m. This was pretty close to a transition zone, as we went from scraggly thorny desert scrub to grassier, slightly more verdant flora found normally at these elevations. We soon passed the remains of an old mining shack, then started up perhaps the only steep bits of the entire hike. Even then it wasn't too bad. We could see the ridgeline not too far off, and motivated by this, we made great time, arriving at the ridge at 11 a.m. sharp, where we again took a quick rest. We could also see the 4wd road coming up from the other side, and we soon saw (and heard) the rumbling of a jeep slowly making its way up this road. We also had sight of the summit now, just a short ways up to our east. The three main "markers": the observatory hut, the windsock and the radio tower, were all in view. We hiked up this remaining short bit and achieved the top at roughly 11:45 a.m. The jeepers were already there, just looking around. Beth and I walked to the summit rocks near the windsock. The jeepers saw us but didn't wave. In fact, they got a move on pretty quick. Beth and I then sat at the top, relaxed, shot a couple of photos, then heard the whine of motor-bikes. I looked down and could see a couple of bikes way below. We walked down to the picnic table, started eating and were soon joined by the foursome of bikers: three brothers and their dad. The younger brothers were about 12. They were nice and we chatted a bit. They asked us how we got up and when we told them, they seemed pretty surprised anyone would want to hike the peak. They wondered if they could take dirtbikes down the trail we came up and we said it would be impossible. They only stayed a few minutes as well. Lastly, a group of six hikers from Prescott followed us and joined us for a spell. In all, Beth and I stayed an hour on the summit, touring the buildings, and pretty much waiting for the rest to leave. We were the last to leave, starting down at 12:50 p.m.

The hike down went great and very fast. We took breaks at roughly the same spots as we did coming up, and aside from the expected fatigue toward the very end, we egressed in exactly 2 hours. The weather had warmed nicely and we relaxed a bit at my truck at the trailhead. Our round trip had taken 6 hours, 35 minutes, but really just about 5.5 hours of actual hiking time. We covered 10.8 miles round trip and 3,360 feet of vertical gain. We drove back to Salome, where we found that our neighbors at the hotel had been "evicted", their clothes and stuff piled by their door. We went for a meal at a little place in Wenden called the Brooks Outback ("Hot Beer and Lousy Service"), then back for a night of relaxing at the hotel. Our evening was highlighted by three full hours of Law and Order television shows, and the cursing of our neighbors when they showed up to see their stuff outside. The next day we went back home via Wickenburg (attending the Gold Rush Days) and a stop at the Vulture Mine south of Wickenburg.

Here's a good observatory link: http://azwww.az.blm.gov/pfo/HARQC.htm

This is a helicopter tale: http://www.marialanger.com/essays/harquahala.html