Backpacking Arizona. Bruce Grubbs
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footwear outside your tent, or if you do, shake it out before wearing it.
Africanized bees have spread throughout Arizona, but are more common in the warmer, desert areas. They interbreed freely with the less aggressive, common honeybee, and only a lab analysis can tell them apart. Avoid all bees, especially if they are swarming. If attacked, drop your pack, run, do not swat at the bees, and protect your eyes. Africanized bees give up the chase after about half a mile. A vehicle or building is the best shelter, but in the backcountry, head for dense brush or vegetation, which confuses the bees. The sting of individual Africanized bees is no more dangerous than common bees—the danger lies in their aggressiveness.
Saguaro cactus
Of course, anyone who is allergic to bee or insect stings should consult a doctor for treatment if stung. Hikers subject to severe reactions should carry antihistamines and an anti-sting kit.
CACTUS AND OTHER INTERESTING PLANTS
Cactus is found throughout the state, though only the Sonoran Desert of southwestern Arizona has the well-known giant saguaro cactus. Most cacti grow in isolated patches and are easily avoided. The cholla cactus propagates itself by growing easily dislodged joints. The long, sharp spines have invisible barbs, so the joints cling tenaciously and are difficult to remove. Use a comb, or a pair of sticks, to pop them off the skin or clothing. Carry a pair of needlepoint tweezers to remove hard to see spines. Cactus spines are a serious hazard to air-filled sleeping pads, and they’re often sharp enough to go right through a tent floor or groundsheet. Look the ground over very carefully before setting up your shelter. In poor light, it helps to sweep the ground with a light beam parallel to the ground.
Poison ivy is found along both perennial and seasonal streams at intermediate elevations in the mountains and canyon country. An organic acid in the sap causes the nasty skin reaction that many people suffer after contact. Washing immediately with water removes the water-soluble acid and lessens the chance of a reaction. Learn to recognize the distinctive, three-leafed, low-growing plant, and also the places where it’s found, and you’ll avoid problems. Remember that the acid gets on clothing, walking sticks, and dogs, as well as human skin.
PERMITS AND REGULATIONS
One of the great things about backpacking in Arizona is that the majority of wilderness areas do not require a permit. The major exceptions are the Grand Canyon National Park backcountry, which is highly regulated due to the overuse of a few popular areas, Saguaro National Park, and a few areas such as the Santa Catalina Mountains that are participating in the Federal Fee Demonstration Program. The current permit requirements and rules are listed with each hike, but since requirements may change, you should contact the managing agency before your trip for the latest information.
HUNTING SEASON
Check with the nearest Arizona Fish and Game office before your trip to find out if a hunt is being conducted in your area. The deer season during October and November brings out the most hunters, but the hunt takes place at different times across the state. Of course, all National Parks are closed to hunting.
JF Trail, Superstition Mountains, Trip 21
Tonto Trail, Grand Canyon National Park, Trip 3
Wild Areas of Arizona
This book is confined to those parts of the state most attractive to backpacking. The desert ranges in the southwestern quarter of the state are conspicuously missing from this book. While this region contains vast wilderness tracts, the region is not backpacker-friendly. The vast desert plains and low mountain ranges offer no trails, few defined cross-country routes, and almost no water. The backpack trips in this book focus on the areas that have a variety of terrain and enough water sources so that you do not have to carry punishing loads.
COLORADO PLATEAU
Slickrock Canyons
The Colorado Plateau is a varied landscape that covers approximately the northeastern third of Arizona, from the Mogollon Rim north and eastward into Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. Sedimentary rocks such as sandstone, limestone, and shale, laid down in horizontal beds, form slickrock canyons and make up the bulk of the plateau. The plateau is not a single, level surface, but a series of plateaus varying in elevation from 3000 to over 12,000 feet. One of the continent’s largest rivers, the Colorado, drains the western Rocky Mountains and cuts through the Colorado Plateau, creating a series of deep canyons along its length. Many of the side drainages carve their own canyons in turn, so that the surface of the plateau is dissected by upwards of 10,000 canyons. Towering above these deep canyons are scattered volcanic mountains. Two of the featured hikes explore canyon systems on the plateau.
Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon, or “the Canyon,” as locals refer to it, is the Colorado River’s master achievement. It is more than 260 miles long, up to 20 miles wide, and over a mile deep, but such numbers don’t convey the canyon’s uniqueness. A colorful variety of sedimentary, metamorphic, and volcanic rocks are exposed in the Grand Canyon. These not only make for good scenery, but their character determines the shape of the canyon and controls the very routes that humans may use.
The Grand Canyon is not just a single large canyon. It is a maze of side canyons and tributaries, towering buttes, temples, and mesas. Hidden here and there are perennial streams, springs, and secret grottos. Nearly the entire canyon is included in Grand Canyon National Park, and most of the park is wilderness. Units of the Kaibab National Forest flank the park to the north and south. Elevations range from 8900 feet along the fir and aspen forests of the North Rim to 1200 feet along the creosote bush-lined banks of the lower Colorado River.
Despite the crowds at the developed sections of the south and north rims, and the popularity of a few trails, most of the canyon backcountry sees no visitors in a typical year. The catch is that only about ten percent of the backcountry is accessible by trail. To explore the rest, you’ll have to hike cross-country through some of the most demanding terrain on Earth. This guidebook contains both trail and cross-country hikes in the Canyon, so you can learn the terrain on trails, and then progress to cross-country when you are ready.
RIM COUNTRY
Mogollon Rim
The Mogollon (pronounced “mug-e-on”) Rim, an escarpment towering 2000 feet above the country to the south, runs across the state from the west end of the Grand Canyon to the Mogollon Mountains in New Mexico. The Mogollon Rim, which reaches elevations of 9300 feet, separates the Colorado Plateau from the central mountains. Just north of the Mogollon Rim, the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau is named the Mogollon Plateau. The plateau consists of a series of northward-draining canyons and intervening ridges, all covered with the world’s largest stand of ponderosa pines. Some of the canyons are protected as wilderness areas, and all of them form a serious barrier to travel. Most of the rim country lies within the Kaibab, Coconino, and Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests.
Cross-country backpacking below Powell Plateau, Grand Canyon National Park, Trip 6
Near Iron Mountain, Superstition Wilderness
White Mountains
Volcanic activity created the White Mountains near the eastern end of the Mogollon Rim. This area