The Mustang Trail

We finally had a couple of days off that were not needed for food shopping.

We went over to Arivaca Creek with Chuck and Betty (other volunteers) and hiked the Mustang Trail. Starting at Arivaca Creek, the trail winds around and climbs a small mountain (4,481 feet according to my GPS) called El Cerro. This translates from the Spanish as "The Hill". It isn't marked on any maps that I can find as El Cerro, but just shows as an un-named peak. This got me wondering how they gave it that name.

So a bit of a diversion...

It is referenced as El Cerro on the refuge website Nature Trails page listing of the Mustang Trail and I found several other references to it as well, mostly copying the refuge website language about the trail.

I then stumbled onto a story of a lost mine at the base of El Cerro Chiquito near Arivaca, but the location on the story's map was wrong. Then I found a reference to El Cerro in a book called A Beautiful Cruel Country by Eva Wilbur-Cruce. This seemed familiar as it is on the list of recommended reading for the refuge. Wilbur-Cruce refers to El Cerro as being south of her house. So, where was her house? It was the Wilbur Ranch and I dug up some history on that ... sure enough, it was at Arivaca Creek and the article even had a photo of "El Cerro".

Finally, it plays into the history of the refuge because Eva Wilbur-Cruce sold her ranch to the refuge in 1989.

After the trail leaves the creek bed, it tracks fairly straight through rising open country with clear views to the northwest and Baboquivari, the mountain that dominates the view from the surrounding landscape. We came across the first Saguaro Cactus that we've seen close up. At that point, we weren't on the refuge but on state land. Shortly after that we climbed more steeply through a saddle called, appropriately, Mustang Saddle and wound our way around to the back (west) side of the mountain where it went quickly and steeply to the top. The trail was pretty clear and well used until we started up. The last part was overgrown and harder to follow but there were cairns and painted rocks to mark the way. It seems that many hikers must not bother to do the climbing part, which is a shame because the view from the top was worth it.



We all had snacks and took photos, then turned around and followed the same trail back. We saw no mustangs (nor snakes ... Chuck was carrying a set of snake tongs in case he found something to collect). We only heard a rather plaintive bellow from some free range cattle in the valley below the saddle.

We did a little trail roving and trash pickup on the way back along the Arivaca Creek Trail, doing our bit as volunteers, then returned to the refuge to pick the thorns out of our clothing. The trail was pretty clean except for the leavings of illegals coming through the area (black water bottle, sterno can marked in Spanish, back-pack). Everything out here has thorns or spines or sharp hairs. Chuck took the brunt of it as he was wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt and lost a bit of blood along the trail.

Slideshow: