Pinal County is mostly desert ringed by a series of ranges in its eastern reaches. The Superstition Mountains are probably its best known range due to its proximity to the Phoenix area, abundance of hiking trails and its lore of lost gold. However, the highpoint of the county is not to be found here; instead it's a point on the north slope of Rice Peak, which itself is a subpeak emanating off of a prominent ridge (the Oracle Ridge) from the Catalina Mountains, home to Mount Lemmon. The hike follows some 4-wheel drive roads. It's not the most amazing nature walk, but it is a pretty day's outing and fairly easy to do. I think I saw my only wild cat in the wilderness while hiking here in 1999: we caught a glimpse of what I think was the tail of a big cat as it crossed the road.

First visit, December 1999: This was my second try for Rice Peak and the Pinal County highpoint, located somewhere on the northern slope of the peak. In 1997, hiking from the south along the Arizona Trail, I became severely dehydrated and had to turn back well short of the objective. Fellow highpointer Ken Akerman had visited the area previously but was unsure if he'd achieved the true highpoint, so we both decided to go back and do it properly. For early December we had great weather: clear, dry, a bit cool and a bit breezy but absolutely beautiful!

Ken picked me up in his Isuzu Trooper, and we left the Phoenix area around 7:30 a.m. heading east along US-60 towards Florence Junction ("Flojunk"), then along AZ-79 south through Florence (and its prisons) to the junction with AZ-77 towards Oracle. Of all things, the Tucson Marathon run was being held, with its route along AZ-77. The road was still open to traffic, but hundreds of runners and onlookers made for a tight squeeze. We arrived in Oracle around 9 a.m., and drove south along a dirt road through Campo Bonito to Peppersauce Canyon. From here, a 4wd track leads into the canyon. We drove in about a mile when we came upon a small traffic jam of Jeeps and Trucks trying to negotiate a particularly nasty portion of the track. These people were from the Arizona Rough Riders Club, out for a drive. Ken decided to park, leaving us about 3 miles from the summit with a little over 2,000 feet to gain (Mar 2003: I have reconsidered these numbers. See note at the end). By 10 a.m. or so, we began our hike.

We simply followed the 4-wheel drive road up to the ridge and to the summit. There are a number of junctions and dead-ends so a map is essential (the topo has "new" changes, as of 1972, in a hard-to-see purple color). We took one dead-end, back-tracked and hiked up with little difficulty. The road is in good shape in parts, awful shape in others. The 4wd club managed to drive to the summit. One woman, in a low-clearance 4wd mini-van, needed to be assisted through some areas. This route definitely requires a high-clearance 4wd vehicle with good tires and strong engine. As for hiking, the gain is pretty steady but not difficult at all.

The summit of Rice Peak is 7,575 feet and lies inside Pima County. The Pinal-Pima county line crosses just to the north of Rice Peak, giving Pinal County is highest point of elevation. The county line crosses a 7,280 foot contour, just missing a 7,320 foot contour. There is also a small knob about 1,000 feet to the north of the county line (in Pinal County) that has a 7,280 foot contour. Ken and I descended the north slopes of Rice peak along a faint use trail, trying to stay close to the ridge line, and hiked out to knob. The knob is topped by a jumble of rocks, which we scaled and took photos. We decided to re-ascend Rice Peak, again staying as close to the ridge hump as we could. We never saw any sign or cairn indicating the county line (didn't really expect to). Also, the county line itself may be indefinite in that area. In any case, we must have crossed the Pinal County highpoint at some point, or came within a couple of feet of it.

We hiked down the same way we came up, again meeting the 4wd club people, who evidently took different roads than us. We almost beat them to the bottom! We arrived back at the car about 4 p.m., and were back in Phoenix about 6 p.m.

Second visit, March 2003 (with Beth Cousland): We left my house about 8:30 am and made our way to the town of Oracle, right about 110 miles overall one-way, same route as Akerman and I took in 1999. There were no problems, and no marathon was being run; we popped into Oracle right around 10:30 and took a drink/smoke/pee break at the first Circle-K in town, then wormed our way south along the Mt. Lemmon Road to Peppersauce Canyon. In Oracle, the road is marked simply by a sign saying "Mt. Lemmon". It wiggles a bit then becomes hard-pack right at a Y-junction, where we went right (south) past the American Flag and 3-C Ranches to the Peppersauce Canyon entrance, right across the way from the Boy's Town complex. In all, about 8 miles out of Oracle. The road in to Peppersauce Canyon is rough and marked as "Not maintained for passenger vehicles". In truth, a passenger car could get in about 1/4 mile to some campsite pullouts if need be, but an early section of exposed rock and steepness with ruts and all that fun stuff would definitely stop any passenger vehicle. I banged up this short slope then pulled into a camping area, where we got ready and started our hike in, right about 11:15 am. The weather was nice- about 65 degrees, and spectacularly clear. I took a gps reading to peg my truck's location; we were just east of the tank noted on the topo map, right about 4,700 feet elevation.

We just simply followed the rest of this road up Peppersauce Canyon, passing the tank (just a cement circular trough placed there ages ago), a mine adit, and a few neat campsites. The map shows the road to "end" amid this canyon, bit in reality it does connect with the double-dashed road shown also "ending" in this canyon, coming in from the west. The fact is, the Campo Bonito quad is really tough to read (as noted in my report from my first visit). There is a maze of forest roads, and not all are shown on the map, and those that are shown are hard to make out against the mottled green background. As we hiked up the end of the Peppersauce Canyon road, we came to a Y-junction where a forest road marker "FR-29" was placed on the left turn, with the Peppersauce Road petering out to the right. This, I imagine, is where the road is shown ending on the map (or beginning, relatively speaking).

We hiked up FR-29 as it suddenly grew steeper, and before long we came to the junction of FR-29 and FR-29C (ignoring another junction about 500 feet before). We took a short break to snack and snap photos of Rice Peak, which was visible for the first time. We turned right onto FR-29C which almost immediately brought us to a substantial junction with FR-4472. We turned right again, now on 4472 (but not marked on our route as such; only a sign at the next junction confirmed we were on 4472). This next bit is easy, as it stays mostly level, passes a couple of drainages (water was flowing in one), and contours above the headwall of Peppersauce Canyon. We could see our earlier route below as we hiked up high. Shortly, we came to our next junction, with FR-4483, and turned left into it.

FR-4483 would be our road all the way to the top. It immediately becomes steep, rocky and heavily eroded in places, and although it wasn't technically difficult by any means, it's unrelenting slope was tiresome. Another junction is reached; we stayed right and finally came upon the main ridge line at a junction with the Arizona Trail, and where Rice Peak was now visible again. It had taken us just under two hours to cover this stretch, with about 1,500 feet of gain. We took another extended break. The weather was magnificent: the dry air and clear skies allowed us to make out fine detail on the Galiuro Mountains about 40 miles to our east, as well as Mt. Graham sticking out above the horizon to the northeast. Rice Peak nearby was quite beautiful, and still heavily shrouded in snow from some storms that passed about a week earlier. We had actually passed some snow patches starting about 200 feet below the ridgeline.

After our break we continued south along FR-4483, which gains and drops twice before coming to a junction with FR-4475, which Y's to the left and goes downhill; obviously not what we wanted. We stayed right and started the steep slog up and around the back of Rice Peak, hitting much snow at about the 7,000 foot level. A jeep or two had been through recently but there was no evidence of past hikers. The snow was soft and footing was good. We eventually ambled up the last steep few hundred feet to Rice's summit, arriving a little before 3 pm. We took a short break but decided to get started looking for the liner cairn and hiking to the rock knobs, both of which vie for Pinal's highpoint.

As noted above, the Pima-Pinal county line runs on the north side of Rice Peak, putting Rice Peak inside Pima county. The line is drawn crossing a 7,280-foot contour line on the north slope, on the same ridge that leads out to a small knob of rocks, also at 7,280+ feet. There was still quite a bit of snow on the north slopes of Rice Peak, and we made our way down carefully, following a natural path that leads northeast, then catching another path of sorts that swings back west. This put us in an open area where I aligned myself with the rock knobs and took a GPS reading. My longitude was precisely correct, for all intents and purposes, but my latitude was off: we were south of the liner area by about 200-300 feet. And we were obviously higher than the rocks, so I knew we needed to hike down then seek out the possible liner highpoint. The snow was quite soft and still very deep in places and again, after about 25 minutes of walking about, we could not locate the cairn. But by reckoning with the rock knobs and my GPS, I felt we were extremely close, if not there already; the cairn was likely hidden under the snow. We also hiked out to the rock knobs, where we took photos. It was now 4 pm, which alarmed me a bit and I suggested we better get started going back to my truck.

We re-ascended Rice Peak, staying high on the obvious ridge and trying one last time to find that cairn, but again to no avail. We got back to the top, dug out a coke we had buried to get cold, had a drink, then started the walk back out. We made good time and other than just stopping now and then to give our knees a chance to stop screaming, we were back to my truck at just after 6:30 pm, just as the sun was about to go down for good. I had just enough ambient light to drive out the road to the main road back to Oracle; by that time it was totally dark.

For our drive home we figured we'd find a restaurant in Florence- no fast food, but something like a Denny's. No such luck. Absolutely nothing to be had in Florence. Yikes what a dump! We tried Coolidge to the west, and because it was now past 8 pm, what few restaurants there were were closing. There was a Pizza Hut still open but I doubt I'll ever get hungry and desperate enough to want to eat there. We finally decided to just go back to Chandler, where we found a Perkins open for our victual needs.

Note on distance and gain: With my GPS I pinpointed our parking spot to be just east of the "tank" on quad, putting us very close to 4,700 feet (+/- 20 feet) elevation. Therefore, the one-way gain to Rice's summit is over 2,800 feet, and if we include the 300 feet we lost then reascended as we came back up Rice, our total gain was over 3,100 feet. As for distance: based on my pacing speed and instincts, plus a little more study of the map, the 3 mile one-way figure is too short. Although I can't bee 100% sure, it seemed more like 4 miles at least, but not 5... maybe 4.25 one way, or 8.5 round trip.

Update, Oct 2003: Much of the northern slopes of the Catalina Mountains, which includes Rice Peak, were wracked by the enormous "Aspen Fire" over the summer of 2003. The fire assuredly burnt much of the area, making for a possibly very different landscape than as we found it in March.