peak_bgr
New member
I’ve been eyeing these peaks here in AZ for quite some time and now it’s time to get up high. SO looking through a local trail guide I decided to take on Mount Wrightson at 9500 feet.
It was a long drive to the trailhead south of Tucson but well worth the trip. The scenery alone from the highway was amazing. Then the drive up to the trailhead was killer. Our peak was in the clouds and looked to have a storm system building around it, so we didn’t know if we would summit at all today. The trailhead starts at 5420’ in a crowded parking lot. Many were setting off just to hike to the Josephine Saddle the spot for the memorial of three boyscout troops who died in a freak blizzard there 50+ years ago.
The trail is very easy to hike, the book refers to the trail as very difficult and at time extremely difficult, words like that just make my mouth water. I guess they’ve never hiked in the NE. The trail has so many switchbacks and long ones, that you could climb all day with hardly a break. Especially up to the Saddle. Along the route we could see our mountain still in the clouds, and we noticed a small herd of deer making there way down the mountain. After the saddle the climb got a little steeper, but still nothing like I expected. Our next spot was Baldy Saddle at just over 9000 feet. The switchbacks to this point were numerous and short and even though we climbed a couple thousand feet it seemed so moderate we hardly noticed. It climbed through huge walls of rock, and numerous rocky crags.Just below the Saddle is where the thunder started and a light drizzle. Maddi and I looked at each other a decided it’s only 0.9 to the summit we need to go for it. She recommended I go on ahead a get the summit so she doesn’t slow me down. I would have none of that.
The climb got a little steeper and we spread out a little I was in front about 150 feet, that’s when a bolt of lightning literally split us, when right in between us, and we were in the woods still not on the open rock. We really doubted that we should be here at this point. It was now hailing very hard, we got over an inch of hail in spots in less than ten minutes.
Next was the odd thing, it was snowing and raining, and hailing with thunder and lightning all at once, talk about a real mixed bag that Tom Messner would be shaking his head at. This is where we decided it’s probably a good idea to drop out aluminum hiking poles. We did continue on pushing through BB sized hail and 40 mph wind. It switchbacked several times along and over open rock ledges. At this point we were practically running to the summit. We tagged it real fast snapped a couple half assed pictures and ran back down to the cover of the trees. It was pretty scarry and stupid to be the highest thing within a 100 square miles in a electrical storm.
It took us no time to get back under the clouds and to Josephine Saddle. From there we decided to not take the Old Baldy Trail back down but instead use the Super Trail. It’s about 1.5 miles longer but exits us right back at the car on the other side of the parking lot. This is a very long trail, no a very very long trail. So many switchbacks you can hardly tell you’re going down hill. On the way down we checked out a heavily burned area and noticed even more deer heading down the mountain, I guess we were the only two fools going up.
It was a long drive to the trailhead south of Tucson but well worth the trip. The scenery alone from the highway was amazing. Then the drive up to the trailhead was killer. Our peak was in the clouds and looked to have a storm system building around it, so we didn’t know if we would summit at all today. The trailhead starts at 5420’ in a crowded parking lot. Many were setting off just to hike to the Josephine Saddle the spot for the memorial of three boyscout troops who died in a freak blizzard there 50+ years ago.
The trail is very easy to hike, the book refers to the trail as very difficult and at time extremely difficult, words like that just make my mouth water. I guess they’ve never hiked in the NE. The trail has so many switchbacks and long ones, that you could climb all day with hardly a break. Especially up to the Saddle. Along the route we could see our mountain still in the clouds, and we noticed a small herd of deer making there way down the mountain. After the saddle the climb got a little steeper, but still nothing like I expected. Our next spot was Baldy Saddle at just over 9000 feet. The switchbacks to this point were numerous and short and even though we climbed a couple thousand feet it seemed so moderate we hardly noticed. It climbed through huge walls of rock, and numerous rocky crags.Just below the Saddle is where the thunder started and a light drizzle. Maddi and I looked at each other a decided it’s only 0.9 to the summit we need to go for it. She recommended I go on ahead a get the summit so she doesn’t slow me down. I would have none of that.
The climb got a little steeper and we spread out a little I was in front about 150 feet, that’s when a bolt of lightning literally split us, when right in between us, and we were in the woods still not on the open rock. We really doubted that we should be here at this point. It was now hailing very hard, we got over an inch of hail in spots in less than ten minutes.
Next was the odd thing, it was snowing and raining, and hailing with thunder and lightning all at once, talk about a real mixed bag that Tom Messner would be shaking his head at. This is where we decided it’s probably a good idea to drop out aluminum hiking poles. We did continue on pushing through BB sized hail and 40 mph wind. It switchbacked several times along and over open rock ledges. At this point we were practically running to the summit. We tagged it real fast snapped a couple half assed pictures and ran back down to the cover of the trees. It was pretty scarry and stupid to be the highest thing within a 100 square miles in a electrical storm.
It took us no time to get back under the clouds and to Josephine Saddle. From there we decided to not take the Old Baldy Trail back down but instead use the Super Trail. It’s about 1.5 miles longer but exits us right back at the car on the other side of the parking lot. This is a very long trail, no a very very long trail. So many switchbacks you can hardly tell you’re going down hill. On the way down we checked out a heavily burned area and noticed even more deer heading down the mountain, I guess we were the only two fools going up.
