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Bedazzled by Ash Creek Canyon's Fall Colors

By BRYAN LEE

Published: 10.23.2006

Who would think while motoring a gravel road through southeastern Arizona's forgotten desert plains that soon you'd see the biggest revolution in color since Disney?

Ash Creek in the forgotten Galiuro Mountains is one of the most dazzling - and unknown - fall color spots in Arizona. The reason for its secret is location, location, location - or lack of it. Not particularly hard to get to, but it takes a long couple hours from Tucson into the back-in-time spaces of Willcox and Bonita.

There is no hint of human presence at this trailhead, and the effect is startlingly peaceful. And it's merely the entranceway to Ash Creek and the 2.8-mile trail through rocky creek beds and up to Ash Creek Spring.

The only public entrances in the east Galiuro's are through Ash Creek and High Creek, a little north and farther north of the community of Klondyke. Just intrepid hikers and backpackers and loners who truly love this beautiful cruel wilderness area frequent these peaks.

Ash Creek is the Galiuro's ode to color with its fiery red maple, yellow box elder, gold sycamore and aspen plus the purple, scarlet and green of walnut, sumac, Virginia creeper and velvet ash.

"We walked through a canopy of brilliant red maple leaves," says Tucson hiking guide Steve Buck.

"A red carpet of the same leaves covered the path. All your eye could see was brilliant red in every direction. Up, down and on all sides. It was eerie - and spectacular.

"One woman with us from the Midwest once laid down in the red leaf piles and began rolling in them and waving her arms and legs in the leaves to carve an angel image. She had never seen such fall beauty in southern Arizona."

Maple is a season elixir to nostalgic folks born "back East" - the pungent dry intoxicating smell, the kaleidoscope of color. All that's missing is the scent of burning leaves.

Ash Creek maple is the sugar big-tooth maple of 4,000- to 6,000-foot elevation, the maple syrup tap of the West.

The teeth are broader than the higher elevation Rocky Mountain maple, but as the trail ascends, you see that variety mixed in the fluttering waves - red, scarlet, crimson, wine, burgundy, garnet, claret. You name the red.

Look down and the colors are red carpet and the pleat of the leaves weave in your head. Look up and catch the sky and the wondrous gold of a tall grove of aspens.

"I have made this trip four or five straight years, and it never has been boring," Buck says. "This has to be one of most beautiful fall spots in Arizona.

"It's the stuff Arizona Highways (magazine) covers are made of."

ASH CREEK CANYON

Trailhead: To access Ash Creek Canyon in the Galiuro Mountains, take Interstate 10 east to Exit 340 (Willcox) and follow Fort Grant Road north to Ash Creek Road. Turn left and proceed to canyon area.

Facilities: None

Length: 2.8 miles

Cost: Free

Notable: Fall colors here generally peak in late October and early November.

File photo by BRYAN LEE / Tucson Citizen

The explosion of fall color in the Galiuro Mountains’ Ash Creek

Canyon is one of Arizona's best-kept secrets.