My wife Beth and I spent the Labor Day weekend in Bisbee in southeastern Arizona. Bisbee is a fascinating town- an old mining city that fell on hard times after the mines shut down in the mid 1970s, then witnessed a revival as the town became host to numerous retirees and artists in the 1980s. At one time in the late 19th century, Bisbee was the biggest city between San Francisco and St. Louis. Being a mining town, Bisbee also featured very elegant buildings, many of which still stand today, and in part give the town the character it has today. We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast (a first for me) in "Old Bisbee", which is the historical part of Bisbee (today, Bisbee is actually about 4 little 'districts' spread out over a few square miles. Old Bisbee is the westernmost section along AZ-80, while the main part of Bisbee is a few miles east. Some outlying areas also count as Bisbee. It is still the county seat of Cochise County). Old Bisbee is tucked into a canyon, with homes built wherever the owners could hew out some flat patch of land. The streets are steep, narrow and twisty. At 5,000 feet elevation, the weather was very nice, and we spent most of our weekend walking around town, making short trips in the nearby areas (Douglas and Agua Prieta, Mexico), and enjoying weather that doesn't feel like a blowtorch on your face all day.

Mount Ballard is the highpoint of the Mule Mountains, the range that contains Bisbee and the many mines that begat Bisbee. Our B & B was only about a mile and a half drive from the trailhead. We decided to do the hike on a Sunday morning. We drove Tombstone Canyon Road west, crossing underneath AZ-80 and then up and on top of a saddle. AZ-80 actually crosses a tunnel called Mule Pass Tunnel just before entering Bisbee from the west. Our trailhead, so to speak, was directly over this tunnel. When we arrived, it was about 8 a.m. and I was mildly chagrined to find "No Trespassing" signs on all the fencing. I saw a woman out in her yard nearby and I went over to greet her and ask about access. This worked out well as she was the landowner of said land, and she put up the signs after having some roustabouts use her land to drink beer and shoot guns on. She was real nice and she said we were more than welcome to cross her bit of land to access the peak, once she was convinced we weren't going to drink beer and pop caps. She showed us a way to get past the fence and on to the ridge. Like most landowners, she just wants the basic courtesy of being asked first. Naturally, she might get suspicious if we just started hopping fences and whatnot. Beth and I started the hike about 8:30.

We breached the fence along the parking pullout and hiked up a very old clearing that gained a ridge very shortly, maybe 5 minutes of hiking. At the top of this ridge was another fence, which we scaled. I believe this was the extent of the lady's land and that now we were on public lands. An obvious path winds along this ridge and catches the major north ridge toward Ballard. While there is no maintained trail as such, enough people have hiked this peak to beat in a useful path. Walking up this prominent north ridge, we basically stayed high, followed the path, periodically followed the fence in places, and had to step carefully around and through some brushy patches. The route is short but features some short, steep sections to top out on small ridge highpoints. The immediate objective is a prominent highspot visible pretty much from the start, notable for the 'orangeness' of the soil (in fact, at first we thought this may be the highpoint itself). This may be the crux of the hike, as the trail gets very steep and rocky, and sometimes hard to follow. But it is short, and after a short, strenuous scamper, we were on top of this knob, where for the first time we saw our objective, now just about 1/4 mile away. The path became a little more distinct as it wended its way through a thick cactus section, down to a soft lowpoint, then up the pleasant grades through grasses, cactus and juniper scrub to gain the summit. Amazingly, the fence we found at the start went all the way to the top! We commented on the hassle it must have been to put it in. In places it is damaged... but in a pinch it serves as a fool-proof navigation item. We reached the top about 10 a.m. sharp in very humid weather. The actual summit is amid thick brush. We rested here, snapped a photo or two, then got moving as the flies were really buzzing us.

On the hike down, we got a little lost on the steep 'crux' section and had to bushwhack some short stretched before finding better paths. There are some excellent views down into Old Bisbee from this path, and I'm sure professional photographers have hiked these trails to snap their shots. We took a few, too. The hike out took about an hour. The stats overall: about 1.5 miles one way, and about 1,500 feet of gross gain. We were back to our B & B by noon for a shower. We spent the rest of the day at the Brewery Gulch Daze, a street fair in downtown Old Bisbee featuring music, beer, water balloon fights and all sorts of fun shenanigans.