The Mountains of Arizona
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Peak 6129 • American Peak American Peak lies deep in the Patagonia Mountains, south of the Harshaw townsite (and current-day Hermosa Mine). The peak is named for the American Mine, which is/was located a little northeast of the peak. Along with American Peak, there is unnamed summit to the south that barely squeaks above the ranked-status baseline, so yes, I had to climb both. This southern peak, Peak 6129, is a double-humped summit covered over in heavy forest, going by the satellite images. Harshaw Road (Coronado Forest Road 49) runs just west of the two peaks, which rise over a thousand feet higher. The few people who have climbed American Peak generally bust directly up the steep west-facing slopes. This was my default option, but in studying the forest maps, I saw a track that came in from the southeast, ending just below Peak 6129. It would be longer, but cut off a lot of heavy branchwhacking, bushwhacking, grasswhacking, cactuswhacking and rockwhacking. I left home a little before 6 a.m., cold and dark, and drove through Sierra Vista, stopping for snacks in Whetstone. I continued west on highway AZ-82 through Sonoita and into Patagonia, the sun rising by now but still very low to the east. In Patagonia, I found my way onto Harshaw Road, and followed that into the hills, heading southeast. It is co-designated FR-58 once inside the forest. I had no traffic on the whole drive and no traffic on these roads. I followed the signs to Harshaw, turning onto FR-49 at a junction, and driving through the Hermosa mineworks. Here, I encountered a couple work trucks, guys driving very slowly. A few other vehicles had taken up camp along the roads, some looking like hunters. About five miles south of the Hermosa Mine, I came upon Apache Road (FR-214) and went in on it, east a little under a mile. This road was smooth but with ruts. I then pulled into a clearing where FR-5525 branches north. It was nearly 8 a.m. now, still very cold in the low 30s, but with a sunny sky and high expected to be in the 60s.
Date: January 31, 2026
• Elevation: 6,129 feet
• Prominence: 303 feet
• Distance: see below
• Time: see below
• Gain: 1,900 feet (gross)
• Conditions: Sunny, cold then warmer, very breezy
Arizona
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Main
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PB
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LoJ
I got dressed and bundled up, got my pack on and started walking on FR-5525 a little past 8 a.m.. In the shade it was very chilly, but in the sun, it felt comfortable. The road gets bad fast, a couple very deep channels early on that would have stopped me.
I walked in about a quarter mile, passing someone parked (a Jeep Rubicon). The road angles right (northeast) and up a bluff, getting a little steeper here, and much rockier too.
I came to a Y-split and stayed right ... which turned out to be an error. I walked another quarter mile to another Y-split. Two trucks were parked here but no sign of people. I was feeling uncertain about the roads so I got out my thing and looked up some maps. Being elevated as I was, I had a decent signal.
Sure enough, that first Y-split was where I wanted to go left, that being FR-4694. I walked back to it and started walking this second road, which at first didn't look like anything special. There was no Forest-Service sign or plastic stick to indicate the road number.
This road angles around Peak 5804, gaining a small rise, then starting a long drop into a canyon toward Limestone Tank. Here, the road is just a pile of rocks. There were three open shafts alongside the road, not covered or fenced, just a sign or ribbon to warn people. Just stepping off the road five feet to take a whiz could mean dropping into one of these shafts.
The road drops about 200 feet to bottom out near Limestone Tank, where the "main" road continues north, now regaining that lost elevation. I stayed on it for about a mile, gaining about 400 feet, to its end at a fenceline just east of Peak 6129, near "Corral Canyon Trick Tank".
I had hiked a little under two miles to here in about an hour, and so far things were going well. It made sense for me to climb Peak 6129 first, then cut over to American Peak.
I left the road and started up the steep slopes. The forest was heavy but with lanes most of the time. I gained about 200 feet to gain a ridge. I then angled left (southerly) and aimed for the peak up ahead.
The uphill here wasn't difficult. It was grassy and branchy but most of the time there was a way through the flora. A few times, I found myself in a thicket of branches and either got real low and crawled through them, or just brute-forced my way through.
In time I had made the summit of Peak 6129. It was rocky and open and not that exciting. A fenceline runs across the top here, but it was just a couple feet high here. The highest rock was slightly east of the fence. A small solar panel was affixed to it, but I saw no other apparati that needed the solar power. I found no cairns nor registers.
The western bump looks about as high as where I was, so I walked over to it, a drop of about 60 feet in a quarter mile. It too wasn't that exciting. Trees and branches made line-of-sight between the two peaks difficult. Lidar says the eastern summit higher by 10 feet. This peak also had a solar panel affixed to a rock for an unknown reason.
Big American Peak rose to the north, a pyramid-shaped peak with nice-looking lines, a rocky dome, and a lower slope that was a mix of rocks and small cliffs. I had to descend about 300 feet to get to the saddle below.
This descent was a pain in the ass. The trees and branches grew into an impassable tangle, forcing me to look for ways around or to just power through. It went slow and I did not enjoy it at all. But it got me down to the saddle connecting to American Peak.
Elevation: 6,216 feet ✳
• Prominence: 704 feet
• Distance: 5.9 miles (whole hike)
• Time: 3 hours, 45 minutes
• Conditions: same
PB
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LoJ
That fenceline ran across the ridge and down to the saddle. Although I generally could avoid it, I was amused it was here in the first place. What could it possibly be needed for?
At the saddle, looking up, the slope looked nasty, with a cliff higher up. I'd need to angle around. So the fence now became handy. It angled right too, slowly going up. I followed it as long as it seemed sensible to do so.
At some point I could see the slope above me, while steep, looked open and free of cliffs. I was also off the starker rockier slopes and back to where there was more grass and low trees. This would provide better footing.
I then angled straight up and slowly grinded up the slope to catch a small ridge. The summit of American Peak rose nearby, one cliff covered in yellow lichen.
On the ridge, I had a steep grassy ramp directly to the top. This went well and I was on top of American Peak, finally. It had taken me two hours since beginning the hike to get here.
The top is rounded and grassy. A Forest-Service benchmark was affixed flush to a rock at the top, and off to the side was a cairn, where I found the register buried within it.
The register bottle looked new but the papers inside were a jumbled mess, about twenty sheets crammed into it. I removed the yellow ones, as they had been damaged by water. I transferred the names therein to the newer pages, placed here by a hiker just this past November. I left behind about six or seven of the blank sheets which should last about fifty years. This peak seems to get one person a year, some years no one at all.
I spent about fifteen minutes up top, having a rest and a snack. It was a clear day, sunny and temperatures in the mid 50s. However, it was very breezy, enough to blow my hat off if I wasn't careful. The wind was just enough to chill me.
The views were fantastic. To the south were peaks in Mexico, and to the east was the elevated plain of the San Rafael Valley. My wife and I were here over twenty years ago. It is a beautiful area, used often in the old days for filming locations. To the north I could see buildings and roads of the mine.
For the exit, I really did not want to retrace my route up and over Peak 6129. I considered bailing off the saddle back to Harshaw Road and walking that back to my car. Instead, I exited the summit and angled easterly, catching the peak's northeastern ridge. This had a longer profile and more open slopes.
The downhill hike on this ridge went well. I stayed generally south of the main ridge, dropping down into a drainage. I then had to regain about 250 feet of elevation toward a saddle, where I should be able to see the first saddle I had been on before climbing Peak 6129.
To my relief this worked very well. The terrain was manageable, the trees grew close but offered lanes, the grade wasn't that bad, and all I had to go was grunt up the slope until I topped out. At the saddle, I could see the first saddle.
I sidehilled here, following a game trail that may have been a human trail (hunters and/or crossers). Throughout the day I saw a couple of abandoned clothing items left behind by the crossers, and a few water bottles. Nothing looked recent, though.
Back to the first saddle and the track, I took a longer break here. To my surprise, it had only taken me an hour to get here from the summit. It felt longer.
The walk on the track back to my car took about 45 minutes. I had to regain that 200 feet, and I stopped briefly to look at the mines. One was just a big hole right there. I tossed a rock in and heard the thump about a second later, about a 30-foot drop. Moments later, I stopped at another mine. The sun was angled exactly to where it shone into the mine shaft. I got an image of it, but it doesn't show the scale very well.
I was back to my car at 11:45 a.m., a hike of just under six miles. It had gone faster than I had expected, and it worked well for me. I changed into driving clothes and headed out. I was quite pleased to get both peaks, and American Peak is an attractive peak that should get more attention than it does.
I stopped in Sonoita for a sandwich. The state (ADOT) has been reworking a bridge at Empirita Road on Interstate-10 between Tucson and Benson, throttling traffic into one lane. I've been caught in it once, and spent about an hour going 5 miles per hour to get through it.
The alternative is if heading eastbound is to exit at the AZ-83 exit, take that into Sonoita, then take AZ-82 east to AZ-90 back north to Benson and the interstate. It adds 50 miles but can be less in terms of time.
I mention this because normally, traffic in Sonoita is very light. But today, the backlog of cars and trucks coming south on AZ-83 stretched back a ways, suggesting a long backup on the interstate. This would mean more traffic on AZ-82 into Whetstone. A lot of impatient interstate drivers and truckers.
I got in behind a group of motorcyclists who were going reasonably fast (about 70 miles per hour), but they and another car and me were playing leapfrog with a pickup hauling stuff, meanwhile there are about ten cars behind me. A few miles later I see some biker hauling ass up onto me. He passed me going about 90 or 100, then passed the guy ahead of me and the bikers ahead of him.
I'm watching all this and suddenly, a big pickup just appears over a rise. The speeding biker was crossing on double yellows. He had to do a very fast evasive maneuver into "our" lane because he was about a half second from being obliterated by the truck. The truck guy actually pulled over. I imagine he was a little freaked out. I was not too pleased about this careless biker. He wasn't some kid on a racing bike. This was some older guy on a touring bike. Idiot.
I stopped briefly in Sierra Vista, then just drove on home, arriving about 2 p.m..
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