PHOTO JOURNAL | JOURNEY'S THEME | LAYOUT OF THE ROUTE | GOOGLE EARTH | APPROACH & PHILOSOPHY

NEW! Sky Islands Traverse photo journal: click here shortcut links: Part 1: Dragoon Mtns & San Pedro Valley | Part 2: Huachuca Mtns & Canelo Hills | Part 3: Santa Rita Mtns & Las Cienegas | Part 4: Rincons & Santa Catalina Mtns | Part 5: Redfield Canyon & Galiuro Mountains NEW! Updated Google Earth file showing the route that I actually walked NEW! Sky Islands Traverse on Google Maps (MyTopo layer) (coming soon @ Google Maps: an overview of the trails that comprise the route) Thanks to postholer.com for hosting this!

The term "sky islands" refers to bold, forest-clad mountain ranges isolated from one another by expansive valleys of grassland or desert. In the arid basin and range country of southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico, these mountains receive sufficient rainfall and snow to support a wide diversity of flora and fauna whose habitat is elevation-dependent. Unable to migrate between "islands" due to the intervening desert "seas," many of these species have evolved in comparitive isolation, as on Darwin's Galapagos.

Besides being ecologically rare and unique—the southernmost spruce-fir forest in the U.S. is found here, while many bird species more common to central America occur no farther north—the Sky Island ranges are also stunningly scenic and alluring, in many ways defining the very character of this region. While some ranges are well known, such as the popular Santa Catalinas outside Tucson, others like the Santa Teresa Mountains remain obscure and infrequently explored by the region's burgeoning human numbers, in no small part due to their physical ruggedness and difficult access.

In the spring of this year, I set out on foot to explore as many of these unique Sky Islands as possible in one continuous journey, what might be called a "Sky Islands Traverse." Traveling for the most part unsupported, without the use of a vehicle, I journeyed a route of my own making along ten of the region's standout ranges and across the adjoining valleys, with an eye toward finding a rewarding adventure, a workable travel corridor, and a "repeatable experience"—that is, a hike worth hiking again, and a trip worth sharing with the long-distance hiking community. Although the way was certainly rich with challenges, and though I did not quite manage to complete a thru-hike of the route, (due to snowpack, a thru-hike minus ~12 miles, a section hiked previously) I found great potential in the route's layout and in the experience itself, and am eager for further exploration. More details of this Sky Islands Traverse, mile for mile arguably among the most scenic and biologically diverse long walks in the United States, will be forthcoming on this page. In the meantime, one can view photo galleries from my walk here. And read on for the backstory, the preface to this walk, as I anticipated it in the months and weeks leading up to the first step.

A Sky Islands Traverse

The idea for a "Sky Islands Traverse" was born of the author's own explorations on foot across this bright corner of the country. On the more popular ranges one finds trailheads affording passage into the high country, but little in the way of trails that link the various ranges to one another. The Arizona Trail, and of late the Grand Enchantment Trail, do connect several of the Sky Island ranges, yet both touch on this idea only in passing, leaving much of the region unexplored. For years the question lingered: Would it be possible to travel a continuous, unbroken journey on foot, one that would highlight a majority of the region's standout ranges, while at the same time minimizing the challenges of navigating the sometimes vast and less hospitable terrain in between? The proposed route that I intend to explore this spring finally attempts to answer the question.

Journey's Theme

As a general rule, the 70,000-square-mile Sky Island region of Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Old Mexico is said to contain perhaps two dozen of these island-like ranges - a veritable archipelago. By default, my journey will remain entirely north of the Mexican border, thus ruling out perhaps fully half of these. Also out of the running: New Mexico. Despite playing host to considerable mountain and desert grandeur in its southwestern region, nonetheless this state's Sky Islands remain less well defined, and tend to be less prominent than those across the state line in Arizona, with access also presenting considerable challenges to exploration.

In Arizona, then, the goal will be to hike across as many of the Sky Islands as seems reasonable, without charting course too far out to sea. I hope to achieve a certain balance between the journey's central theme and the overall enjoyment of the journey itself. Certainly the low country in this region runs the gamut, from lush, saguaro-studded bajadas to sere basins of greasewood and salt playas; natural travel corridors such as the San Pedro River often give way to areas less conducive to human-powered recreation, due either to land ownership concerns, the inhospitality of the landscape itself, or both.

Layout of the Route

The journey will begin in the legendary Dragoon Mountains, whose rugged granite spires once served as the holdout of Chief Cochise and the Chiricahua Apache. Rather than paying homage to a compass heading as on most long hikes, the planned route will form more of a spiral, which I'll follow generally clockwise. The route will be circuitous - unavoidable given the concept at hand - though any sense of aimless wandering should be far exceeded by the joy of exploring the trip's engaging itinerary in full.

The accompanying map highlights some of the major attractions along the route, which include:

SKIT 3D Map - click for full-size

San Pedro Riparian NCA

The San Pedro River remains one of the Southwest's last undammed, free-flowing streams, and is especially unique given its perennial course through the low country of the Chihuahuan-Sonoran desert eco-region. This important riparian corridor is also home to more than 250 species of native and migratory birds. An extended portion of the river between the Mexican border and community of St. David, Arizona is protected as the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area. This corridor provides a natural travel route between the surrounding ranges and in no small way makes a link between the Dragoons and Huachuca Mountains possible.

Linking it all together

Land Ownership map, with elevation profile - click for full-size

The planned 500 mile long Sky Islands Traverse (SKIT) will also receive help in no small part from the Arizona Trail (AZT) and Grand Enchantment Trail (GET), the two established long-distance routes that thread this region. Other on-the-ground resources—various trails and roads—permit connections between the two big routes and beyond. Occasional stretches of cross-country travel will also facilitate passage, and some of these will likely be considerably "out there" by long-distance hiking standards, even when compared with the CDT and GET.

Once in the Huachuca Mountains, the SKIT will join the Arizona Trail, next crossing the Santa Rita Mountains, with a brief deviation here in order to spend more time along the high crest of this rugged range. The route will then remain faithful to the AZT until the Wilderness of Rock region of the Santa Catalinas, where the SKIT will strike off toward the east in order to explore Redfield Canyon and the Galiuro Mountains, here trending northward toward a rendezvous with the Grand Enchantment Trail at the lonely outpost of Klondyke. The SKIT will coincide with the GET over the Santa Teresas and across the Pinalenos (aka the Grahams), then will head off on its own once more as the pioneering journey continues south across what might be termed the Pinaleno-Chiricahua Divide. Here will commense the most adventurous portion of the journey, as the SKIT traverses a region little-explored and notably lacking in trail-oriented infrastructure, though certainly abundant in terms of quality of scenery and setting. The Dos Cabezas Mountains Wilderness might be considered the heart of this untamed country. Farther along the SKIT reaches Fort Bowie National Historic Site, where it follows the historic Butterfield Stage Route for a time. A bonafide trail network, somewhat vestigial initially, does return as the route reaches the Chiricahua Mountains proper, then blossoms into a landscape of recreational bounty as it passes the famed rock formations of Chiricahua National Monument and on into this range's high country wilderness. The proposed Sky Islands Traverse will end at the trailhead for the birder's paradise of Cave Creek, just outside the surpassingly scenic village of Portal, as seen here.

Google Earth Preview

In addition to the overview maps on this page, a Google Earth KML file showing the route that I intend to follow is also available for download. All you'll need to explore the Sky Islands Traverse interactively in 3D is
Google Earth on your desktop. Then just click on the following link to launch the file in Google Earth. (Or right click > Save As.) Overlayed on Google Earth's seamless, high-detail satellite imagery, it offers an astonishingly realistic and informative look at the terrain through which the route passes.

Update, post-trip: This file now depicts the route that I actually walked. Actually it's a composite of what I walked and what I would walk were I to do the hike again. Probably 90% or more of the route line represents my walk, and the rest are portions of my intended walk that I missed due to snowpack concerns or are my proposed "better options" to what I walked due to difficulties encountered or ideas for improvement. (In a few cases better options have yet to be identified!) Suffice it to say this kml file would be the most advanced template to start with if planning such a hike for yourself.

          sky-islands-traverse.kml

Approach & Philosophy

The trek will unfold in traditional long-distance hiking style. I intend to walk a continuous, unbroken route between the SKIT's termini, and to resupply along the way via postal maildrops and/or stores. Resupply opportunities—perhaps 8 all told—will be fairly abundant in near-to-trail towns, particularly in the first half of the trip, and I'll likely be able to forgo some of these in favor of extending my time in the backcountry. Although distances between water sources along the route may occasionally prove inconvenient, I generally expect to find water more than once a day given this winter's average-to-above-average precipitation, and do not intend to rely on pre-arranged caches.

While the lead-up to this trip in many ways resembles the time I spent planning my first walk of what I later came to call the Grand Enchantment Trail, it's also distinct from that, as the journey itself will surely be too. I'm intentionally trying to avoid putting too fine a point on this endeavor prior to actually walking the walk, having learned that reality "on the ground" is so often impossible to predict, and best approached with an open attitude rather than a fixed itinerary and mindset. Portions of the route I've mapped may work well in the field, while other notions will likely prove to be misguided, even to the point of folly. I intend to embrace all parts of the experience, and the process, as necessary components of any worthwhile and rewarding adventure. Nor will the Sky Islands Traverse, in whatever form the journey ultimately takes, necessarily benefit from going the way of the Grand Enchantment Trail, with a guidebook and map set, et al. At this point, my focus is purely on getting out there and exploring this remarkable Sky Island region, to learn what the land has to teach, and to behold what remnants of vitality it continues to possess in this time of ever-expanding human influence on the natural landscape.

Henry Thoreau once wrote something to the effect that the man who journeys to town each day to hear the latest news has not heard from himself in some time. The same might be said of the one whose intent it is to daily make the news. In any case, as is my want - or perhaps superstition - on a maiden voyage as this, I tend to keep a low profile, and won't be maintaining a public journal, blog, twitter, etc. Any news will be nature's to report, and the story unfinished until the journey is done. Hopefully I'll be fortunate enough to return with an earful. Please watch this space for further details, as they say.

For more information about the greater Sky Island eco-region, and about the threats it faces from human encroachment and climate change, please visit the homepage of the Sky Island Alliance. In particular, the Alliance's "state of the Coronado" reports provide a wealth of information on the Sky Island ranges overseen by the Coronado National Forest, including all of those encountered on a journey along the SKIT.

- Brett Tucker, February 2010

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