Date: September 9, 2024 • Elevation: 7,835 feet • Prominence: 925 feet • Distance: 6.4 miles • Time: 3 hours, 50 minutes • Gain: 1,815 feet (gross) • Conditions: Clear, sunny and very pleasant, some winds higher up

Arizona • Main • PB • LoJ

This peak is the highest point of a ridge rising north of the famous hoodoos of the Chiricahua National Monument. The boundary of the National Monument extends northward to include most of the ridge and the summit, thus making it the highest point within the National Monument.

Timber Mountain rises about a mile northwest, at the end of the ridge. This peak is informally named South Timber Mountain. There may have been timber up on this mountain in the past, but fires in the last few decades have wiped out almost all the big trees. The terrain is grassy and moderately brushy, with a few scattered mid-sized trees such as juniper and small pines. Not surprisingly, the old trees now lie on their sides along most of the upper ridge.

Big Cochise Head rises a couple miles to the east. I was last here in 2015 with the fellers when we intended to climb Cochise Head. I recall that day being very cold and blustery. We turned back about halfway when it started to snow. We exited, and drove up to Massai Point to look at the hoodoos, but the weather was too raw to do any hiking.

I've been within the National Monument just one other time, back in 2003, when my wife and I climbed Chiricahua Peak. We hiked some of the trails within the hoodoos, which are fascinating, and much larger when up close. These pillars rise many dozens and up to a hundred-plus feet yet may be just a few feet thick. We also hiked Sugarloaf Peak, which rises nearby and hosts a lookout tower.

I decided only late yesterday to hike the peak this morning. It's been on my list for awhile, but I had to wait until the weather stabilized. Since about the first of the month, the monsoon has dissipated and the daytime highs at these elevations are in the 70s and low 80s, with cool mornings. The breezes are dry, brisk and refreshing. I had a few hours open today with nothing urgent in the morning.

I was up before dawn and on the road while still dark. I passed through Double Adobe and Elfrida, then said hi to the Border Patrol guys at the checkpoint a few miles north along US-191. I followed that highway to AZ-181 going east and north, then AZ-186 going east into the Monument. The sun was rising by now. Being a monday morning and still very early, there was no one on the road.

I drove to a pullout alongside the main road a few miles past the entry gate. I had covered just shy of a hundred miles to get here. This pullout is about a quarter-mile east of an old road that leads to the King of Lead Mine, which lies on the southeast slopes of the ridge. I got dressed properly and was hiking at 5:59 a.m..

The mountain rises north and is notable because it does not feature thousands of rocky spires on it like all the other mountains in the immediate area. It's a big green hump of a peak, covered in grasses and various scrub plants growing in abundance after the wet monsoon. The sun was low in the east and I had shade almost the entire way at first. The sky was clear and calm, temperature about 60°.

I followed the road to the King of Lead Mine. The road is gated and locked back at the main road but tire tracks were still evident in the roadbed, at least for the first half mile. The road down low is level with a soft upward grade, covered mostly in coarse gravel with many erosion channels. All tracks end at a clearing. From here, the road gets narrower and steeper as it gains toward the mine. No one drives this road. Mature brush grew in its bed. One ancient tread was clear enough to serve as an actual trail.

The mine comes after about a mile. Today, it is just some yellow tailing mounds with a couple metal objects including a large tank down the slope of one pile. Here is a summery from the mindat.org website:

A former small underground Pb-Ag-Zn-Cu-Au mine consisting of 5 patented claims (1945), located in the NE 1/4 sec. 18, T.16S., R.30E. (Cochise Head 7.5 minute topo map). Discovered by Mr. John C. Riggs in 1900. Produced 1924-1970. Owned by Mr. Peter Windes, Dos Cabezas, AZ (1945), and later the Cochise Mining Co.

Workings include tunnels on two or more levels and a vertical shaft 340 feet deep, sunk about 1903. The upper adit is 850 feet long, almost due E-W, driven by the Cochise Mining Co. in 1916 to 1918. This adit followed a small ore vein in black lime, the vein dipping 60° to 70°N. There were a few short cross cuts from the adit and a few stopes above them. Another adit, about 250 feet long, is on the west slope of the mountain. It is inaccessible and shows some copper mineralization and pyrite. A third, short (about 50 feet) adit, which is also inaccessible, was driven across a quartzite bed. The dump from it shows good indications of copper with traces of gold. The lower tunnel has a circuitous drift with exploratory sections. It continues a bit further and then bends to the left and has several exploratory cross cuts. No ore was noted in this tunnel (Macfarlane 1945). A total of about 360 tons of ore were produced between 1927 and 1970.

Past the mine, the road gains up to a nothc, then cuts across one more slope and ends at another notch in the ridge. To here, I had hiked about a mile and a half (roughly half the distance to the peak) in about an hour. Now I had the full sun, but it was pleasant up here, still cool in the low 60s.

Now I had the second half of the hike, all off trail and along the high ridge to the peak, another mile and a half to the northwest. Above me was a steep slope. There was a trail ... for about fifty feet. An old path once led to Cochise Head before the fires wreaked havoc here. This may have been part of the old trail.

In any case, I did not need a trail. The slope above me was steep, brushy, grassy and full of dead trees both standing and lying on their sides, and a few live ones. The gradient was not difficult. I moved slowly and weaved my way through and around the barriers. The downed trees and their limbs were most troublesome but I always found a way around them, or sometimes through them. This hill gained about two hundred feet before reaching a small knob, then a drop of about thirty feet to a small saddle below the next hill.

This next hill was a twin of the first: steep but not too steep, brushy and lots of dead trees. This hill also gained a couple hundred feet. Once on top of it, I could see the peak in the distance, about a mile away. There were a couple more hills to climb along the way.

Up high, I had a steady breeze which felt great. It would blow strongly at times. I had to cinch my hat tight lest it blow away. The hiking was slow. I had to constantly weave through the crud. Hidden in the tall grasses were rocks that moved with every step. It was cool but possibly warm enough for snakes, although I don't know if they get this high. I hoped I wouldn't step on one.

Of more concern were the bees. All the flowers were in bloom. It was beautiful for sure, whole swaths of yellow, purple, light pink and soft red. The bees were doing their thing so I moved quickly whenever I heard their buzzing. As long as I moved, my sniffling and sneezing was kept in check. If I stopped, I suddenly turned into a snot factory and could not stop sneezing. There must be some nerve that connects my legs to my sinuses that mitigates the sneezing while I'm walking.

The hike went faster (barely) because once above the main bumps, it levelled off and even dropped a few feet (after each knob, the drop would be about 20-40 feet, and there were three or four of these on the ridge). Sometimes I'd see a path but they didn't go far and didn't help much. Navigation was easy, as I could see the top the whole way.

At the last saddle below the summit, there is a drop of about fifteen feet. It gets very brushy and leafy here, almost like a tiny jungle. Up the other side, I scampered up some easy rocks and was once again on open slope of knee-high grass and downed trees, in other words, the usual.

I was soon on the summit. I had covered about 3.2 miles with about 1,500 neet feet of gain in a little under two hours. It was sunny and warm but very pleasant up here, with a steady breeze. I found the summit cairn and a register therein. I was the first to sign in since May. The top sees just a few people per year. Views were excellent. There was some haze in the distance to the west. I spent about ten minutes up here, having a break. I felt some rock outcrops about forty feet east of the summit cairn were slightly higher. I'm glad I waited until the weather calmed. This would not be a fun ridge to be on if a storm developed quickly.

For the outbound hike, I followed the exact same route, no interest in making this a loop. It was still slow-going through the grass and tree limbs, but going downhill most of the time meant I could move a little faster. Nevertheless, it still took me an hour to cover the length of the ridge before I was back down onto the old mine track.

Once on the track, I moved much quicker. I slowed down at the mine for some images, then walked quickly the rest of the way. I was back to my car at 9:50 a.m., meaning a one-hour-and-forty-five-minute hike out. I also took advantage of better lighting to shoot more images.

I changed into more comfortable clothes and drove out. I actually drove into Douglas and stopped at the gym for a quick workout, as if I hadn't done enough already. I was back home in Bisbee a little after noon.

This hike went well with no tricky sections. The route is easy to follow and it seems almost everyone follows this route to the top. I stopped often to inspect the terrain over to Cochise Head, which I have yet to climb. The lack of a trail, especially after recent fires, makes that climb much more onerous. But it's a peak I want to climb so someday I'll get around to it.