Reiley Peak is the highest peak of the Winchester Mountains in southeast Arizona, northwest of the city of Willcox and south of the giant Pinaleno Range and Mount Graham. The range is easily visible from Interstate-10 passing through Willcox: look to the northwest and there are the Winchesters and Reiley Peak. The range is typical for this part of Arizona: a compact range with significant prominence, volcanic in origin (but not itself a volcano), cliffy and very brushy. Reiley Peak seems to have a reputation attached to it. Climbing it either involves a very long haul through brush, forest and cliffs from the east, or routes from the north that are easier on the legs but involve many miles of remote, poorly-maintained forest roads. Some access routes into the range have been closed when landowners closed easements across their land. The range sees a few hunters and a few hikers, but not in any high quantities.

Knowing this, I was eager to glom in with a group if one should convene for a hike up Reiley, and happily, the Southern Arizona Hiking Club was planning a hike to Reiley's summit for this fine early March tuesday afternoon. My schedule this semester had no classes for Tuesdays, so with the day open, and a chance to climb Reiley, the opportunity was too good to pass up. I made plans to meet the group in east Tucson for the 100-mile drive to the trailhead. To mitigate travel, I drove to Tucson the night before and crashed at Scott Casterlin's place, then made the easy 15-mile drive to the meeting place. There would be four of us: Bob the leader, Elena and Tom. We all piled into Bob's vehicle and started the drive toward Willcox around quarter-to-six a.m.

The drive to Willcox took over an hour, then we exited and followed Fort Grant Road north and west out of Willcox through some farms. Eventually (20-plus miles), Fort Grant Road meets with Ash Creek Road, which we followed more north and west through open state-land desert and ranch properties into the north foothills of the Winchesters. Ash Creek Road "ends" at a turn with Sunset Road and from here we continued west onto Coronado Forest lands, the same access road used for the Bassett Peak hike in the Galiuro Range (for Reiley, we make a left at an early junction). To this point we'd driven about 110 miles from Tucson and it was now 7:45 a.m.

The last dozen miles of road to the "trailhead" was brutal. The old easement through private land was closed so an alternative route had to be bladed. These newer roads aren't on the maps, and the roads are rough and very rocky, plus we needed to watch our junctions carefully. Generally we stayed on FR-659. Bob had a series of waypoints on his GPS to help guide us. A couple sections of the road were rocky and I got out a few times to spot Bob through the driving so he wouldn't scrape his vehicle's undercarriage.

The last three or four miles of the road were atop "The Mesas", raised little plateaus of open rangeland and grass. We passed through a few gates, the last with a sign reading "only entrance and exit for the Broken Dipper Ranch" (This would be crucial on our exit, as things would turn out). Reiley Peak could be seen at times, and finally, finally, we came upon the road's end at a cattle tank, slightly after 9 a.m. The drive had been tiring, and we had the hike still to do. The day was a mix of high clouds and sun, and a bit on the warm side, even at 5,700 feet elevation. I think we started hiking around 9:30 a.m.

Reiley Peak as seen from where we parked. We followed the long genetle ridge directly ahead. Not shown: the 200-foot canyon directly in front that needs to be dropped into and then out of.

From our starting point we could easily see Reiley Peak, which is a small saddle-shaped summit with the left (northeastern) summit seemingly higher, although the right (southwestern) point is actually the highest. One possible way to the top was to walk east along the fence line up an open grassy slope, then turn south and walk along a prominent north ridge to the top, but this way looked very brushy for the last half of the hike, so we decided against it.

Instead, we followed another ridge, slightly west-northwest of the main north ridge. We had a good view of this route and it looked promising, both visually and on the map. The downside was that we had to descend 200 feet into Brush Canyon below, then up again to get onto this ridge, aiming for the time being for the cattle tanks low on this ridge near a big juniper (see panorama photo at left). Cattle had bashed in some good paths both down and up this Brush Canyon. We separated here at first but found one another again once on top the ridge.

From here it was just a matter of walking southeast along this ridge, up and down the various peaklets along the way, until we eventually would top out on Reiley itself. The first half (at least) appeared to be mostly open grass, juniper and mountain oak, with very gentle slopes. We fell into a line and made steady progress through the open sections, sometimes going up and over the hills and sometimes side-hilling around these bumps via cow paths.

By the way, the cow trails helped considerably, forging paths through the grass, although the paths were often decorated with cow poop. In low points along the ridge were dirt clearings where the cattle congregated. These clearings were devoid of grass, just bare dirt with poop everywhere. We made good time and found ourselves in another saddle just south of point 6,521 on the ridge. From here to the top would be much steeper with more substantial brush. We took plenty of breaks and were doing well as a team.

The next way-point along the ridge was point 7,105, and we found another cow path that assisted us greatly. We surmounted point 7,105 then down its south side, dropping about 40 feet to a saddle below the next waypoint, point 7,245. This time we traversed below 7,245 to gain the small saddle to its west and below the summit of Reiley Peak. The going here was again aided by a cow path. We were amazed they get this high. There were small patches of snow up here, too.

The final 400 vertical feet was directly up grassy and rocky slope, no cow paths to help us this time. We all made the top around 12:30, coming directly to the southern summit which is marked by a big cairn. We enjoyed a well-deserved break here. We all had a lunch, signed into the log, picked out nearby peaks and rested. The views were outstanding in all directions: we could see the Pinaleno, Galiuro, Santa Theresa, Rincon, Santa Catalina, Santa Rita, Whetstone and Little Dragoon mountain ranges in a sweepng 360-degree panorama. Reiley was centrally located to all these peaks. It was very nice and we stayed here for about 45 minutes.

The hike down went well, generally following the same paths we took on the way up. The loose rock was troublesome. One slipped right from under my foot and I fell into a batch of cactus, getting a whole bunch of spines in my hand through my glove. Elena had a set of tweezers and helped me get the little spines out. Then just a few steps later Tom suffers a similar fate. We took a leisurely pace out, stopping for rests here and there. We had to descend into Brush Canyon again then re-climb the 200 feet to get back to the car. We were back to Bob's car by 4 p.m. After a brief rest to change into drier clothes, we got moving quickly, eager to get down through the rough forest road before it got dark.

On the way out we took a wrong turn. It all looks the same but Bob's GPS waypoints helped confirm we were on the wrong path. We backed out and found the right path: the Broken Dipper Entry/Exit sign being our "proof" we were back on the right path. Otherwise we might still be there. The rocky sections went well and it was another 90 minutes of slow, tedious 4-wheel driving to get back out onto smoother roads. At times the cattle would stand in the road, or run away from us, but in the road, not realizing they should move to the left or right. Finally, back onto Ash Creek Road, we zipped back into Willcox for a celebratory dinner of Subway and Popeye Chicken sandwiches. It was dark by now, but we were happy the hike had gone well and so had the roads. Bob did a fine job of taking the challenging sections slowly and carefully.

It was another hour back to Tucson where we all bid goodbye to one another. They were three really good partners and I enjoyed their camaraderie greatly. For me, though, I still had 110 miles more driving to go to get home, arriving about 10 p.m., dead tired. After a shower and some dinner and hugging and kissing my wife, I crashed, the end of a very long day, but ultimately, a successful one. The nicest part of all this? I never have to go back on those particular forest roads ever again. But I am happy I did once.