Rustler Park and Crest Trail Hike and Birthday Party!

The Hike: 

Photo by Paul Hirt

     On Thursday, September 29, 2011 the Portal/Rodeo Hiking Group met to hike the Crest Trail  from the now open Rustler Park area of the Chiricahua Mountains of the Coronado National Forest.  The Forest Service within the last week had reopened the entire forest for hiking. Campgrounds still remain closed for now while restoration continues to make repairs to damaged facilities following this years Horseshoe 2 Wildfire. 

     This was the first time since the fire that the public has been allowed to hike all the trails in the forest. The Crest Trail and other upper elevation trails had been closed until the opening this last week. It was nice to be able to finally venture out along the crest of the mountains and see the burned areas that like the lower elevations are now carpeted with lush natural vegetation. Nice too, to be able to see the valleys on both the east and west sides of the mountain range. Something I  personally have not seen here before. 

     Where it was once scorched earth is now a profusion of grasses, ferns, and colorful wildflowers. As for the trees though it's a different story.  Most of the trees along the mountain crest trail area had been killed off and burned. Surprisingly though, there still are scorched but living trees that like down in lower elevations are putting out new growth at a rapid rate. It's like the forest missed out on the spring growing season so is now making up for lost time before fall sets in. 

The hike begins.

Linda scans the western slopes from Crest Trail.

Crest Trail 

     The new growth along the crest of the mountains was most evident with the new Aspen growth. Most are nearly half the height of what the older trees were before the fire. Those trees though were not as tall as they could be as they too were regrowth from another fire about 15 years ago.

Scottie by new growth Aspens.

     At approximately the 2/3s point of the hike the group divided into two smaller groups. One went up to Fly Peak and the other ventured farther out to Anita Park. I started out hiking with the Anita Park group which would be about 2.5 miles each way farther than the Fly Peak Trail. About a mile into the hike I noticed that I had somehow cut my right forearm?? Attempts to stop the bleeding while hiking were causing me to fall further and further behind the group, so I called to them that I needed to sit still for a few minutes so the wound would clot and not to wait as I would just go back to the intersection of trails. Bummed out from not making the long hike I returned and met up with Scottie and the two of us hiked back out of the Wilderness Area and back down to the parking lot at Rustler Park. The hike back had beautiful scenery and vistas along the trail back to where we parked.

Wilderness Area sign as we left the wilderness for the parking lot.

     Heading back to Rustler Park we passed scorched forest that had a carpet of green under it. There is sort of a surreal beauty to many of the burned areas where the forest is recovering from the fire. Charcoal black snags rising from a sea of lush green new vegetation. A surrealistic beauty from destruction!

Surreal Picture.

Western view from above Rustler Park.

The Party:

     Following the hike we all met back at Peg's house for a Potluck Birthday Party for Peter, one of our regular group hikers. His birthday he told me was actually September 3rd but this was the first time we all could meet following a hike. A party is a party though no matter when it's thrown!!  There were many others as well who were not on the days hike  for the party. Like I said a party is a party!!

Peg's House.

And the Party begins!!

Peg

     As with all birthday parties there is a cake. In Peter's case seeing as he was now 40 he needed two cakes with 20 candles on each.!! 

Pat with cake # 1.

And there Peter Blows!!

Time now for Morgan and Pat to cut the cakes!!

     That brings to an end the days events for my blog. Check out Bruce's Blog for pictures of the Gypsy Carpenters who were hikers and now performed into the late hours of the party!! The end of a long and fun day of hiking and partying!! - Roger

All pictures unless otherwise stated are by Roger McKasson.