Brown Canyon After Work
"Let's add an ornament to the tree"
One of the very best things about living in Sierra Vista Arizona is that we have a dozen or more very cool hiking trails within a 20 minute drive from our house, and many more than that inside of an hour or two.
On Thursdays Kelly gets off work early (she works at an elementary school) so I decided to join her on a quick jaunt over to Brown Canyon trail. We've been here many times before. She told me that we were just going to check out the ranch house, and she wanted to place an ornament on a tree that hikers randomly decorate at this time of year. This tree was just up the trail from the ranch house. But of course, Kelly being Kelly, we went much further than that, and ultimately ended up doing a hike that was closer to 5 miles.
Brown Canyon Ranch is really easy to get to, you just take Hwy 92 to Ramsey Canyon road, then about 2 miles up the road you'll see a sign on the right for Brown Canyon Ranch. If you want to, you can park (for free) in the clearing right there off Ramsey Canyon road. Or, you can drive another 3/4 of a mile and park at the Ranch itself. Note: if you do this, you will either need an America The Beautiful National Parks pass, or you'll need to pay a fee of $8 for the day, or $10 for the week.
Fall is by far my favorite season of the year, and this particular afternoon was a perfect example of why. When we got out there the temperature was a very comfortable 68 degrees. Perfect for shorts and a lightweight quarter-zip sweatshirt.
It didn’t take long before we were on our way down the trail in search of the “Christmas” tree. Kelly was actually a little disappointed when we found it way sooner than she was expecting, just a couple hundred yards from the ranch house. Of course we stopped to take a few pictures.
But Kelly held onto the ornament that she’d brought with her in case we came across the “real” tree that she remembered from the past couple of years.
… and that’s how this quick stop to hang an ornament turned into an actual hike.
Not that I’m complaining or anything. We saw some interesting cloud formations and were even visited by a very cooperative deer, who stood still for a couple of minutes so we could take her picture.
We ended up hiking about 2 1/2 miles up the trail (like I said, we’ve been here quite a few times before). None-the-less, Kelly was a little resistant when I suggested that we turn around about an hour before sunset, as unbeknownst to me we were “almost to the slot canyon”. She ended up going ahead for about 20 minutes while I stopped to catch my breath. She herself stopped just short of the slot canyon. But it was enough to remind us that a Brown Canyon to Hamburg Trail to Ramsey Canyon 13+ mile loop hike needs to be added to our 52 hikes in 2025 list.
Not that there isn’t also some cool stuff right along the trail. Just before you get to the water trough at about the 2 mile mark, if you take a fork off to the left, you’ll come across an old rusted out abandoned car. Of course we had to stop for pictures.
This seemed like a perfect opportunity to try the “Ad Me” feature on my new Pixel 9 Pro XL. First I took a picture of Kelly, then I gave her the phone so that I could “pose next to her” then the AI attempted to make it look like we took the picture together. I think we still need a bit of work on our posing. But this feature may come in handy on some of our future hikes.
Okay, so now it’s question time:
Does anyone know why an animal would choose to poop on the rock in the middle of the path, instead of in the grass, or even on the path itself? (we saw this several times).
And with that question in our heads, we decided it was time to start heading back towards the car. We had to dodge a few runners and mountain bikers along the way, but it was still a pleasant walk in the woods. And of course we still had to hang Kelly’s ornament on the tree.
I agree, it looks pretty good
One final stop before we went back to the car. The ranch house is open to the public and staged in something close to its original configuration. Definitely worth taking an extra 5 or 10 minutes to stop in and look around, either before or after your hike.
There is a lot of interesting history up on the walls. You can either take a few extra minutes to read it there in the house, or check it out on the internet later when you get home: https://browncanyonranch.org/
Well, that’s about all I have for now. If you’d like to hear more about our future hikes, please consider subscribing. In addition, Kelly will likely post more pictures (almost certainly better than mine) on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/jotnhill .
Til next time,
Todd