We Climbed Carr Peak

Todd finally made it to the top!

I love that I live in a place where we can decide the day before that we are going to go hike up to the top of a mountain that peaks at 9200’ above sea level.

Now before you get too impressed, I have to admit that we did “cheat” a little bit by driving up to the Reef Townsite Campground (7200’), then taking the Old Sawmill Spring Trail to Carr Peak. This would have been a slightly longer hike, with a greater elevation gain if we had come up Miller Canyon as I attempted to do by myself last November. But in any case, I still felt it in my back and knees for the next couple of days.

Our original plan (and still a future goal) was to do two peaks (Miller and Carr) in the same day on April 15th. But as you can see in the picture above, there’s still a bit too much snow on Miller peak, so we decided to postpone the two peak adventure for a little later in the spring.

We did get a bit of preview by taking a 1.5 mile detour to Crest Trail before we climbed Carr Peak. Truth be told, we missed our turn. But it worked out okay, as we saw the sign that confirmed that Miller peak was only another 2.5 miles on Crest Trail. I think this will be doable.

This is not to say that our journey to Carr Peak was without a few trials and tribulations. It turns out that there is still a bit of snow on the trail in a few spots starting at about 8300’. At one point I was almost ready to turn around when we came to a very narrow portion of the trail with a steep several hundred foot dropoff just to the right, which just happened to be covered in icy packed snow. We had to literally grab onto some tree branches as we navigated our way to a portion of the path again consisting of only dry earth. Fortunately, this was the worst of it, and the trail was more navigable the rest of the way to the top.

You know what else is really great about hiking in the Huachuca mountains? Despite the fact that it was a beautiful Saturday morning, we saw exactly 4 other people the entire time we were out there.

I’m not saying that either Kelly or I are anti-social (we’d be happy to chat if we ever bump into you on the trail). But sometimes it’s nice to enjoy nature without a lot of other people around. Side note: this is why I’m not terribly enthusiastic about the prospect of visiting some of the more popular State and National Parks.

I'm sure that throughout the course of this year we will take a couple of trips that require long drives. But now that spring has arrived, there are five peaks greater than 8000’ whose trailheads are within about a 20 minute drive of my apartment. I'm quite sure this was merely the first time of many in the near future where I'll get to build a rock carne and take a panoramic picture from the top of a mountain.

Do you have any favorite hikes that are basically right in your own backyard?

Please let us know in the comments.

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