Brown Canyon

It was even colder this morning, 21° when we got up. Our water hose was frozen once again. This would prove be a problem later. I had ordered a heated hose about a week ago and it was supposed to have been delivered yesterday, but when we got back to the refuge it was not there. It wasn't there this morning, either.

I rode down to pick up the truck again as we were going back to Brown Canyon today. We were expecting to meet Rob and Reta, the local volunteers who were leading the twice-a-month public hike in the canyon and we were going along as trainees. I brought the truck back and picked up Ellen and headed out. We got about two-thirds of the way out the entrance road before finding a dead deer. A Mule Deer was lying on the road. It seemed a strange place for roadkill, since it wasn't there when we came back yesterday and there isn't any traffic on the refuge after dark. We had a radio and tried to call Dan to see what to do, but, even though I'd taken it out of the charger, its battery was too weak to transmit. Back to the visitor center we went.

This turned out to be fortuitous as Dan had been trying to reach us on the radio at the same time. Rob and Reta had arrived at the refuge (we'd thought they would go directly to the canyon road). Dan wanted us to travel together. Rob and Reta seen the deer and had reported it to Dan. Being on the main entrance road to the refuge and it being Saturday, everyone wanted it moved. With the four of us in the truck, we followed Dan back to the deer. Dan moved it off the road 50 feet or so into the grass, telling us to go on so we wouldn't be late for the hike.

Brown Canyon is one of the few areas of the refuge closed to the public. It was a condition of the acquisition. The refuge part of the canyon was acquired from a group of landowners led by Ray Harm. Harm lived in Brown Canyon and as he was getting older felt that he couldn't continue to live in such an isolated location. It was an area ripe for development. There were only a few private holdings in the canyon, but it could have been subdivided. Harm wanted to preserve the canyon and convinced his neighbors that this was a good idea. He approached the refuge staff and they felt it would be a good acquisition as it was a pretty unique environment (having an endangered wildflower helped, I suppose).

The land included several homes, the Harm House, where we had dinner on Thanksgiving, a lodge which is used as an Environmental Education Center and hosts overnight environmental programs and retreats, and another small dwelling called "La Casita", which used to be used as volunteer housing and for short-term rentals, but is now empty due to a malfunctioning well.

One of the terms of the canyon acquisition was that the land would not be ordinarily open to the public to minimize the damage and provide wildlife habitat. It is a truly beautiful place and, being so close to Tucson, could easily be the most visited area of the refuge. During the late fall through spring months, the refuge offers public hikes twice a month, led by volunteers. A small fee is charged, which goes to the maintenance of the canyon and its buildings, and only 12 people are allowed on each hike. Private hikes are also offered, subject to the availability of a hike leader.

Today was the last hike of November. We were going along as volunteers "in training", although it seems unlikely we will lead any hikes. I think we might need quite a bit of study and a few more trips into the canyon before we could even think of leading a public hike.

We drove to the entrance road into the canyon where we met the people who had signed up for the hike. The hike had sold out, but one person cancelled at the last minute, so we had 11 hikers plus us four volunteers. From the entrance road, we led a convoy of cars up the rough road into the canyon, past the Harm House to the education center. The refuge asks that people have a high-clearance vehicle (virtually any SUV would be capable), but one of our group had a Toyota mini van. They made it up and back, but I think they touched bottom more than once.

From there we hiked up the canyon. There are two trails in Brown Canyon, but only one, the Arch Trail, is used for the public hikes. It is about five miles round-trip and mostly follows along the creek up to a natural rock arch, along one of the rhyolite dikes that cross the canyon. The habitat is much different from the grasslands which make up the bulk of the refuge. Since we gain several thousand feet in altitude, the landscape becomes a sycamore and oak forest with much different bird life.

Much of the hike is not actually within the refuge. Above the refuge land is state trust land, but the same restrictions apply, although some of it is open to hunters. The trail runs past a series of old ranch buildings and stone walls. The stone walls were put up by the ranch hands as busy work between cattle seasons. There are some pretty impressive walls. Except when we were in the trees, there were great views up the canyon with Baboquivari Peak showing over the top of the canyon. The day was perfect with blue skies, moderate temperatures and the sycamores turning yellow. The Arizona oaks were still green, but they are more like southern live oaks than northern oaks. They have acorns but have small elliptical leaves rather than the broad multi-lobed leaves of the ones in our yard.

We eventually reached the arch and after the requisite photos retreated a bit to an open spot where we broke for lunch and Ellen got another life bird, the Arizona Woodpecker. She had four life birds on the hike (Montezuma Quail, Hammonds Flycatcher and Townsend's Warbler in addition to the woodpecker).

On our return we took a short bit of different trail that passes a portion of the creek bottom forming rock pools of clear water. It also passes an abandoned ranch house from the seventies, which is wide open but still structurally sound. It is on state land rather than refuge land, but it is far enough up the canyon that the refuge probably wouldn't have maintained it either.

It was a great hike even though we followed in the rear of the group acting as sweeps to make sure no one was left behind. Some of the hikers were dawdlers and often Rob would stop to explain something or point out a bird, but by the time we caught up, he was ready to move on.

By the time we got back to the refuge, the day was done and we walked back to Speedy, only to find that we had no running water. Chuck and Betty had returned from Phoenix during the day to find water spraying out of the side of our outside water filter attached to the supply faucet. The overnight freeze had split the filter and, when it thawed in the morning (long after we had left for the hike), the water inundated our site. Thankfully they turned it off. After removing the filter, all was well, the hose was not damaged and we had water again. Since a freeze was predicted again, I disconnected the hose at both ends before retiring, sort of a mini-winterizing. Today it's off to Tucson for our weekly grocery shop and to replace the filter. Where is our heated hose, Mr. UPS?