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I cross the interstate and find Airport Road, but no airport in sight. The road leads west towards the Winchester Mountains and beyond, the Galiuros, and somewhere in that remote mountain range my destination – Redfield Canyon Wilderness. The road winds around the southern extent of the Winchesters, past a number of old ranches, War Bonnet Ranch, the Winchester Ranch, and finally to the Muleshoe Ranch – now owned by The Nature Conservancy and managed as a wildlife preserve. The Muleshoe Preserve is a lush oasis in the otherwise barren rangelands surrounding the mountains. I stop in at the ranch house and have a chat with one of the preserve managers, Wes. We cover the conversational formalities so very common in the region – the drought, the heat, the population explosion, the "old days", and the like. I get the distinct feeling that Wes and I share some common values – a love for wild places, a desire to escape the inconsequential ruckus of city life – although Wes seems to be doing a better job at actualizing these ideals. When I ask him if he enjoys working for The Nature Conservancy, he tells me that he's been there for ten years. I take the hint. Like any conscientious visitor, I thank him for the job he's doing, the nice conversation, and (especially) the access – the preserve straddles the only direct trail to Redfield Canyon and closure of the road could make accessing the canyon a hell of a lot more difficult. We agree that human population lies at the crux of all the world's problems and I press on, anxious to forget that very thing. I pass across the last cattle guard and begin the slow drive on a single lane two-track into the heart of the Galiuro Mountains at a snail's pace – four wheel drive and first gear the whole way. The irony does not escape me – driving into the wilderness, decadent and convenient.
The confluence of Bass Canyon, Hot Springs Canyon, and Sierra Blanca Canyon, all perennial streams, creates a luxuriant riparian area rich and diverse in plant life – cottonwoods and willows side-by-side with oak and juniper. All kinds of unnamable herbaceous life thrive beneath their shade (unnamable due only to my inability to name them). The trail snakes its way northward, up and down rocky canyon slopes, traversing the western edge of the Galiuro Moutnains fourteen and some odd tenths of a mile to Jackson Cabin – the heart of the Redfield Canyon Wilderness. Jackson Cabin will be my base camp for the next few days.
I see absolutely no human along those sinuous fourteen miles, only a roadrunner – running down the road, turkey vultures circling overhead (why are they always following me), and the occasional flash of some dickey bird too fast for me to get my field glasses to my face before disappearing.
Wilderness Boundary
Late in the afternoon I arrive at Jackson Cabin, deep in the heart of the Redfield Canyon Wilderness. The canyon itself is a narrow red-walled chasm lined by tall cliffs interrupted by shallow caves created over centuries of scouring by the rise and fall of the river. There are no established trails and the multitude of small adjoining canyons creates a veritable labyrinth for careful exploration.
Jackson Cabin
I packed my essentials and start out from Jackson Cabin, headed south along a faint game trail south along Jackson Canyon to its confluence with Redfield Canyon. There's ample water in the river and lush vegetation – young willows and tall, majestic cottonwoods. I hike south for a couple of hours, stopping occasionally to breathe in the solitude, exhaling the tension carried with me from "the world". Later, farther south, I locate a small shelf in the canyon wall that's flat and wide enough to allow me to lay out my bedroll. As darkness descends into the deep canyon, I snack on dried fruit and sip the refreshing water provided by the wilderness. Tired from my hike, I drift off to sleep as screech owls call out in the distance.
Redfield Canyon
The next day, I head back north and in the late morning I pass by Jackson Canyon. I'm not ready to return to Jackson Cabin quite yet, so I continue up Redfield Canyon. Soon the canyon floor becomes steep and choked with gigantic boulders that fell from the canyon walls long before I breathed this Earth's air. I scrambled up the canyon, picking my way among the boulders. After a mid-day snack, I continue north – climbing ever upwards in a portion of the canyon that will be impassable during the monsoons when my boulder strewn path gives way to flowing waterfalls and deep pools. In some places, shallow pools remain from the previous season's rains, and the distinct sign of the canyons inhabitants – the mule deer, the javelina, and the cougar are obvious in the drying mud along the edges of the pools.
Mid-day gives way to afternoon, and the early nightfall quickly approaches and the sun dips below the steep canyon walls to the west. At this point, I realize that I had better find a good spot to camp, or b-line it for the cabin. Of course, there's no such thing as a b-line in this terrain. Somewhere south of Mitchell Canyon, I turn south and begin to climb out of Redfield Canyon towards what I think (hope) is an unnamed drainage from Walnut Spring.
Walnut Spring
I flush up two mule deer does along my way and stop for a look at the spring before descending back to Jackson Cabin. As the moon rises, I arrive at the cabin and build a fire. I light a cheap cigar and appreciate my opportunity to have this intimate encounter with the Wild.
Female Mule Deer
