After spending a day on Hachita Peak, Beth and I drove east and north to spend a couple days at the Faywood Hot Springs, where we camped for two nights and spent our time relaxing, reading, sleeping and soaking in the hot tubs. We had visited for the day back in November, so we wanted to come back for a couple more days. The surrounding area is high desert plains, ringed by numerous mountain ranges of varying height and breadth. The springs themselves sit on a few acres of land surrounded by desert rangeland, with a few hills in the area that I walked up for some broader views. The hill just to the east has a stonehenge-like ring of rocks put in by the late owner, aligned (so I am told) exactly so that the shadows line up on the equinox and solstice days. There's also a labyrinth to walk and meditate upon. Like all hot springs, Faywood is developed but definitely not 5-star, which is good. They have day use pools, camp spots, and pull-throughs for RVs. Some pools are clothing optional. And, most pleasant of all, there were some camp kitties! One very pregnant cat made friends with us and posed for a photograph (on the left sidebar). There were four total, and they variously played, slept, chased, fought and meowed throughout the days. At night, the cloudless and moonless skies allowed for some amazing stargazing. Even with a regular pair of binoculars, we had fun making out binary stars and the fine detail of the Pleiades. If you are interested, check out the Faywood Hot Springs link.

Burro Peak was our new goal, after our two nights at Faywood. We tried to visit it back in November, planning to drive the service road to nearby Jacks Peak and make a short easy hike north to the summit of Burro. The map made it seem easy, and we only allotted a couple hours for this endeavor, but when we found the road (marked Gold Gulch Road), it was soft river sand! Even in our truck we did not want to chance driving in the soft sand, even for a short bit. We explored a couple other side roads but gave up and decided to try again some other time, taking one of the longer trails to the top and make a full day of it. From Faywood we drove back onto highway US-180 north about 15 miles to the town of Hurley for some drinks, then back south and onto the road for the Grant County airport, and soon thereafter south onto White Signal Road, which is a county-maintained dirt connector that makes for a shortcut from US-180 west to highway NM-90. This saved us about 30 miles of having to go into Silver City and back down. The road is wide and bladed smooth, and very lonely. Just endless miles of fencing, some windmills, amazing mountain views, and as we gained in elevation, greener grasses and forests of sotol and yucca. All the while the Big Burro Mountains stood before us, a long gently-sloped ridge with three summits - Jacks, Burro and Ferguson (as viewed left to right, or south to north from our vantage). Jacks has radio towers and a road to its top. Both Jacks and Ferguson Peaks have summit elevations just below 8,000 feet, while Burro's is enclosed in an 8,020-foot contour, and marked as 8,035 on many maps. After about 20 miles on White Signal Road it let out onto NM-90 in the community of White Signal. From here we went south-west on NM-90 to a pullout at about milemarker 21.5, onto Gila Forest Road 828, and shortly to a parking area near the trailhead with the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). The sign had Jacks Peak as 4 miles, and Burro Peak also as 4 miles away. Clearly this could not be true since Burro is about a half-mile north of Jacks. Oh well, we'd figure that out later. I coaxed the truck up a bumpier, rutted road north about a quarter-mile and parked it behind a large tree. The trail was just a few yards into the low scrubby forest from here, and I figured we cut out a half-mile of hiking by doing this, not to mention hiding the truck well, too. We stayed for a short bit to get ready; the day was pretty warm and warming up fast, even at near 6,400 feet elevation.

We finally started onto the trail at 11 a.m. The temperature was probably in the mid-70s, but the day was totally clear and bone dry - humidities in the single percents. The lower trail is high desert scrubland transitioning into the more typical juniper woodland, but the mostly open terrain and radiated heat made for some warm early going. We went slow and stayed on the trail. Quickly, it was evident it did not go where it was shown on the map. It actually trended west and went around a small hill at 6,848 feet, going clock-wise, then up and on its north side east again, to connect up with the trail as shown on the map. We took a couple GPS readings to be sure. This little bit didn't add too much extra distance, I don't think. We took breaks often to combat the heat and stillness. Shade was scant at first but more plentiful as we hiked higher. In the shade the temperature was very nice. The heat we were feeling had more to do with the reflected heat coming off of the rocks, soil and grasses open to the sun.

On our second break we took another GPS reading and found that we were back on the route shown on the map. From here on up the going was fairly benign, with easy gradients and well-marked trail with few obstacles. The route pretty much straddles the main southerly ridge - the continental divide itself. Sweat pouring off my right side would hit the ground and eventually work its way into the Carribean, for example. We hiked up and down numerous little bumps, often losing 20-30 feet at a time, then regaining it. In the meantime Beth's back and neck started to act up, seizing on her and causing her great pain. Every few minutes we'd stop and do some stretching exercises - accompanied by severe beatings to her back muscles by me to get them to behave. Beth soldiered on, and we took it slow. We eventually worked our way up the only moderately steep portion of the hike, a short 300-foot gain section that put us on a high ridge just west of point 7,657. Jacks Peak and its towers were in plain view, while Burro's summit poked out behind as a gently-shaped hilltop, not too prominent above the intervening peaks. However, Beth's back was simply not going to allow her to push on. We stopped in a nice clearing and took a long breather to figure out what to do. She was rightfully frustrated. After a while she prompted me to go on and hit the top, while she would stay put. I had mixed feelings - I naturally want her to feel good and would prefer her to be with me, but where we were was pretty safe, and we were clearly the only people on the mountain that afternoon. We had packed in a small picnic-type blanket and some reading material, so we set her up on this spot, and I took off to go hit the top. I figured 90 minutes round trip - to lighten my load I left the pack with her, too, and just took some water and the camera with me.

By the map I figured about a mile to the service road and another half-mile to the top. I took off on a fast walk, reaching point 7,657 pretty quickly where to my surprise on this warm afternoon I found some remnant patches of snow still clinging to existence on the ground. The trail swung north (my left) and started a series of small ups and downs over little ridge-line bumps. This went on for about 15 minutes, then soon enough I was out onto the service road. I made a point to remember this junction because it wasn't too well-marked otherwise. On the road I hiked up for a short bit, which was unexciting, then it started to level off a bit near some old foundations, including one with a still-intact standing chimney. It looked like an old residence! Maybe someone lived up here way back when, or maybe it was built for some lookout personel. I have no idea. By now Burro's mass was in plain view. I took off cross-country a bit, dropping into the small saddle between Jack and Burro, where I re-found the trail. The drop here was about 150 feet, then a gain of 250 feet to the top of Burro. This section was rockier than before, but soon it let off onto some nice grassy slopes, shaded in some good-sized pines. The summit is somewhat long and broad, so I stayed on the trail until it started to drop again. When it did so, I left the trail and with some luck, found the USGS Benchmark in a clump of rocks on my first try. I signed in to the small register, amused to see one other visitor on this day (who presumably came in from the north). To be sure, I visited and tagged two other prominent rock outcrops that had some probability of being the true highpoint. Satisfied, I hightailed it back down and back to Beth. I had said 90 minutes, and when I arrived back, I still had 10 minutes to spare. She was laid out, enjoying the sun, reading and soaking up the rays. The long rest had helped her back, which was good. It was now about 3 p.m. so we got moving.

We took the hike down slowly, passing our time by making up song lyrics about our big obnoxious loud barfy licky scratchy kitty. We passed some cattle on the route, just a small group of four or so. Beth's back and nect started to give her trouble some more, but she was determined to push on, stopping only when the pain grew unbearable. We took a few breaks and took the actual hiking very slowly. By now the sun was low in the sky and the temperatures cooler but still very comfortable. We had a very enjoyable break where we watched the sun set behind a foreground ridge, and just enjoyed the solitude, the scenery, the quiet, the scents, everything. That Beth could not make the top was a bummer for both of us, and that her neck and back were in great pain was very frustrating, but in this one interlude, sitting together, the only two people on the mountain, in utter quiet, the whole picture came into focus, so to speak. This was the highlight of the hike, the highpoint, figuratively. It was truly a wonderful moment, pain nonwithstanding. My wife Beth is my love and my hero.

We eventually walked out to our truck, where we quickly changed out of our hiking clothes and got moving. We had a 25 mile drive to Lordsburg, then an 80-mile journey back into Arizona and our campground at the Essence of Tranquility hot springs in Safford. We had dusky light to Lordsburg, then pitch black to Safford. The drive went well, and we had a late dinner at the Golden Corral in Safford, arriving about 10 minutes before they closed. They were already cleaning up and we could tell they weren't too thrilled to see us, but we didn't care. Most amusingly, literally one minute before closing, a group of five people came in to have dinner. The staff was not amused. Awesome. We rolled into the campground in darkness and set up the tent, and crashed. The dips in the hot water helped both our aches and pains, and it was the perfect tonic for Beth's back and neck muscles. We were home to Chandler by 3 the next afternoon ... in record setting heat. It hit 99 that day (100 in Tempe), and this was just mid-March. We mentioned that we did enjoy our spring, all 20 minutes of it.

Burro Peak's stats are just an educated guess on my part. The signs were not helpful, but based on our usual rate, I figured we got in 2.5 miles before Beth had to call it quits, while the hike to Burro was a total of 4 miles from the truck to the top. Burro Peak does have one interesting distinction: its clean prominence is exactly 2,000 feet, which puts it dead last for all 1,200+ peaks in the United States with 2,000 feet of prominence. This figure is based on a 'conservative' reading of the maps: the summit is shown to be within an 8,020-foot contour, and its high saddle barely below a 6,020-foot contour. The clean prominence figure is the guaranteed minimum prominence, but the actual prominence is almost certainly higher than 2,000. Many sources cite the summit to be at 8,035 feet (I use that figure here). That would up the prominence to 2,015 feet. Add on a few more feet to account for the high saddle's actual elevation and we might be talking about 2,020 feet of prominence. As for the gain, the net would be about 1,640 feet, but this ignores the 150-foor drop and regain between Jack and Burro, so add on 300 feet. I also added on some more elevation to the gross gain figure to account for the numerous ups and downs we experienced. The 2,100 feet gross gain is a conservative figure, in my opinion. If none of this interests you, the hike itself is very nice and worth it regardless of the nibbly arithmetic presented here.