Arizona Trail/ Walker Pass Trailhead to Kentucky Camp

 

Day 7

12.9 Miles

We awake and it's a practically balmy 50 degrees.  I had stripped off some of my layers during the night.  It's kind of eerie when we share that we both had spooky dreams the night before.  Strange vibrations.  

Off we go up the trail at 8 am.  A bit of a 900 foot climb and before we know it we are on the saddle and gazing at new lands.  Awesome.  

We see what looks like the Arizona version of a madrone tree.   The one on the right. Is it?

 

Down the other side and a snack break at the creek at Bear Springs. There is a great camp site here.  We meet Kevin from Tucson. He's section hiking from Gabe Zimmerman Trailhead to Patagonia.  He warns us of bad water after Kentucky Camp and suggests we load up there. 

Sauntering along an evenly graded trail above the creek, we discover we are walking through mining history.  There are interpretive signs explaining how a Mr. Stetson engineered an aqueduct to carry water from these hills down to an area below where they did hydrolic mining for gold.  The reason the trail is so easy is that we are on the aqueduct.  They spent close to 200,000 dollars from 1902 to 1904 to build it and they only ever got back 3000 dollars worth of gold.  Mr. Stetson fell to his death from a  window of a Tucson hotel in 1905.  Hmmm?   

We have fun reading the signs and enjoying the cloudy sky.  Midday the clouds dump on us a bit with showers and ice pellets.  The mountains we just crossed turn white.  So exciting.  During the downpour we startle a group of mama cows in a thicket and one has what looks like a prolapsed uterus or a stillborn calf stuck.  It's hard to tell cause she scurries away.  Poor dear.  I'm having my own female issues as my period decides to show up in a big way.   We slow are saunter down to a creep, but the sun comes back out and everything sparkles and we are very content. 

We see a house and decide to leave a note on their gate about the cow.  If it was our cow (thechapmanranch.com) we'd sure want to know.  

We are now camped near Kentucky Camp which was the headquarters for the Mining boondoggle. There is water and pit toilets, they just ask campers to camp outside the fence.   We went through their self guided tour of the building and Mark looks pretty official at the desk doesn't he?  It's an old adobe building that was once a hotel and later the center of The Hummel family Ranch.  You can see it's picture up top.  

Today had lots of water along the way and all but the first climb was very easy. 

 

Today's takeaway: History comes alive when you actually spend some time walking through it.