Page 22 - Volume 3 - Walks In The Black Range

7. South Palomas Contributed by Devon Fletcher
NOTE: As described here, this hike is around 10 miles roundtrip. It could be made slightly shorter by driving all the way to the lower corral (I parked on a hill just above the canyon bottom deciding the last 1⁄4 mile or so looked a little risky even with a 4Runner and 4WD), or a couple of miles longer by foregoing the nearly non-existent “road” I used that goes up Curtis Canyon just east of Hermosa and parking just off FR 157.
Places like this in the Gila, especially in the Black Range are the essence of the ineffable for me. Still, I try to find the words, and I diligently take the photographs that I know will never transmit the feeling that I have when I am at the bottom of this deep lonely canyon with the obviously majestic thousand foot cliffs crowned with a myriad of rock formations rising above, while beneath my feet moss growing thickly on the gray bedrock gives way to a plush quilt of fallen bigtooth maple leaves in tan, yellow and red on the banks.
I hear what turns out to be a deer stumbling on the rock glacier, in answer to my own stumbling. I think this is a
place so rugged that even the deer have difficulty now and then. I think, I don't belong here, and yet I am here and that creates a giddy sort of dissonance.
I had been in South Palomas once before when we had been camping at either Circle Seven or Morgan Creek quite a few years ago. We only hiked on the trail along the creek briefly before heading off into Marshall Creek to find the springs to cool off our overheated dogs on a warm September morning.
It's a long drive to get there for a day hike: 2 hours and 47 minutes from my home in Las Cruces. The last mile or so on some tracks barely visible in dry grass only increased my anxiety about the feasibility of the whole enterprise. But the morning was pleasantly warm and the skies devoid of clouds as I started hiking out past the old lower corral. In a short distance the good trail I was following headed up Marshall Creek, while the remnants of the Palomas trail became invisible in the tall grass along the creek. I experienced some low grade panic, wondering if I was on the right track, until I found the upper corral of wire and wood and I knew now it was all good.
Somewhere early in this trip I left my aluminum hiking pole on the ground as I took photos of oaks and boxelders in full
turn. I picked up several sticks along the way that served well as substitutes. I never did retrieve the pole which I've been trying to lose for some time and now had finally succeeded. I kept a good pace, knowing my time was limited.
An owl flew from its perch and turkeys trotted up the trail in front of me. As I walked on, and the canyon narrowed, I caught a glimpse through the trees of a patch of blue at the base of a rock tower. It was a natural arch formation which would have been so easy to miss had I not looked up at just the right moment.
Puddles lingered in scoured out pools in the bedrock as the creek bed became the clearest avenue of travel. Immense cliffs towered above the north side of the creek strikingly similar to those seen over in the gorge of North Percha, but these were even higher.
I decided a while ago that I would visit in the fall, because of the canyon of bigtooth maples that I had been alerted to by some friends who had hiked up the