Evans Mountain "Trail" Boondoggle (December 2016)

Edit: post-Burro Fire (July 2017) update at bottom

TL;DR - There is no trail from Brush Corral Trail (BCT) to Evans Mountain. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. We took the BCT down and ascended the saddle through the grass and returned via the ridge in a big loop. It was 14 miles and took 8 hours and we ran where we could. Download GPX trace here.

Evans Mountain from the Quartz outcrop to the west

Now it all started a few months ago when I went to visit Upper Green Mountain and ran across a sign called "Brush Corral Trail #21." It was a nice sign and it illuminated a trail I had never been on going in a direction I had never explored, so I followed it. Two miles and a lot of descending later, I was rewarded with another steel sign indicating a junction. Keep going straight down the Brush Corral Trail 2.3 miles to something called "Evans Mountain Trail" or return to higher elevation on the Brush Corral Shortcut Trail. At the time I chose the shortcut trail, returning to the Green Mountain Trail and and ultimately back to Upper Green Mountain Trailhead. But when I got home, I looked up Evans Mountain to see what it was. I didn't find much, but what I found left me wanting more. Not so much because there was so much to see there, but because, in an age where we seem to have hyperdocumented everything, there is little actual information on this destination whose name is emblazoned in steel along the Brush Corral Trail just two miles from the busy Mount Lemmon Highway. Ultimately, I found these three descriptions most helpful at putting together a plan of attack:

• From 2010: I found a stellar description of the Brush Corral Trail from Upper Green Mountain down to the Buehman Canyon Trailhead from Desert Sirena. The route described is a through hike which does not include an Evans Mountain side trip (https://desertsirena.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/brush-corral-trail/).
• From 2013: Desert Mountaineer describes a Mount Evans out-and-back summit from the Davis Sprint Trailhead. The highlighted relevance of this post is a photograph of a glass mason jar containing hand-written register. In comparison of routes, the summit was the only thing we had in common with this hiker (http://www.desertmountaineer.com/2013/05/19/evans-mountain/).
• From 2014: A post highlights a register entry from 1994 that reads: "Trail? What trail?" and notes that  Evans Mountain "is marked on some maps but about which there is not exactly an overwhelming amount of information…" (http://hikelemmon.com/2014/11/02/evans-mountain-10302014/).
• From ?: The Coronado National Forest official recognizes this trail as "Evans #32" and give it its own webpage: http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/coronado/recreation/recarea/?recid=77556&actid=24. However, the webpage is completely blank and devoid of details other than claiming the distance is "5.5 miles." It could be that 5.5 refers to the distance between Brush Corral Trail in Buehman Canyon and Davis Spring Trail in the canyon to the north (which the Green Mountain Trail measures out as 7.5 miles) or the distance from the Brush Corral Trail to Evans Mountain and back (plausible since the Green Mountain Trail Map lists  2.5 miles from the BCT to Evans Saddle and it's a short climb from there to the peak).

Armed with this information, some maps, and hours of discussion, five fearless trail runners from the Tucson Trail Runners joined me in a quest to top this elusive peak and add our names to the registry. I expected a 13-mile round-trip possibly taking 4 hours. As it was, we took a shortcut to save time and I still logged 14.6 miles over almost 8 hours. Given our experiences I would like to document as well as possible our trials, tribulations, and ultimate success at summiting Evans Mountain and returning home safely. If anybody is as fool-hardy as we were, this information could be very useful. As noted above, there is very little information to be found about this location and this can help you understand why as well as provide additional context for future explorers who find themselves interested in visiting this somewhat mysterious place.

The Plan

The plan was pretty simple. Follow the Brush Corral Trail down to where it meets up with the Evans Mountain Trail, follow the Evans Mountain Trail up to Evans Mountain Saddle, and then summit Evans Mountain with a short climb from there. I already knew that the trail to the Brush Corral Shortcut Trail was clear enough, but after that, we were expecting the trail to be obscure if not nonexistent. Thus, we became familiar with the general landmarks and put together a plan based on the geomorphology.

Green Mountain Trail Map very clearly shows a trail from Brush Corral Trail to Evans Saddle. It even gives me the sense I could turn this into a loop that comes back up Knagge Trail...

Part One: Upper Green Mountain Trail to Brush Corral Shortcut Trail 

Segment: 52 minutes
Distance: 2.7 mi
Net elevation change: -1166 ft (-378 m)*
Total elevation gained: 643 ft (209 m)
Total elevation lost: -1810 ft (-587 m)

* Elevation gained and lost is estimated. GPS data has errors.

Easy peasy. Park at Upper Green Mountain Trailhead and follow it to the well-marked Brush Corral Trail Junction, which was just over the ridge from the trailhead. I was surprised to find snow still leftover on the north side of the first saddle and it was a little shuffle down towards the first trail junction.

Mike, Ryan, Caitlin, Celia, and Stacey descending the icy section just over the saddle out of Upper Green Mountain Trailhead

From there, drop down, down, down the Brush Corral Trail through a couple drainages before meeting up with the Brush Corral Shortcut Trail junction, also well-marked and highly visible from the trail. This is not the most well-maintained trail in the Catalinas and is actually quite overgrown with Fendler Ceanothus and requires a couple detours for fallen trees, but compared to everything else--as we would soon find out--it was like the Golden Brick Road to Oz. 

Trees are down within a mile of the trailhead. (Photo Mike Duer)

Stacey descending the Brush Corral Trail

Mike running through the silverleaf oaks on Brush Corral Trail

Aaryn running what would later seem like a super highway: the Brush Corral Trail (Photo: Caitlin).

Part Two: Brush Corral Shortcut Trail to Evans Mountain Trail 

Segment: 1:36, total: 2:28
Distance: 2.4 mi
Net elevation change: -2014 ft (-614 m)
Total elevation gained: 285 ft (87 m)
Total elevation lost: -2300 ft (-701 m)

Google Earth screenshot looking east down the long ridge traversed by the Brush Corral Trail. The junction with the shortcut trail, which climbs up the ridge bottom right, is shown in the foreground. Beyond that, where the Brush Corral Trail hops over a small hummock, a ridge descends to the left. That ridge can be followed all the way around the top of the Buehman Canyon watershed to reach Evans Saddle and Evans Mountain. The junction of the BCT with the Evans Mountain Trail is also marked with a place marker in the distance, at the bottom of this long ridge. 

About a half mile past the Shortcut Trail Junction, the trail tops a small hill and gives you the first grand view overlooking all of Buehman Canyon, Evans Mountain, and the long sloping ridge that the Brush Corral Trail descends. The ridge, which drops quickly off to the right (SE) and then straight to the east for several miles, divides the Buehman watershed in half, with the right side draining Guthrie Mountain and Maverick Spring, and the left side draining a long arcing ridge that extends from this lookout all the way to Evans Mountain. While the Brush Corral Trail forges ahead down the ridge in front of us, the ridge on the left was attractive enough to to discuss at length over pizza, beer, and countless Facebook posts.

Our final plan followed Sirena's 2010 post route: follow the ridge down, staying on top but favoring the grassy side to the south when obstacles arose (such a rocky outcrop a half mile or so down the ridge), since manzanita and oaks choked the north-facing slopes to the left. The alternative plan, following the ridge to the north, was adopted by one intrepid traveler, Stacey, and, with tears in our eyes and our radios set to channel 7, we departed, keeping in radio contact the whole way down the ridge while he traversed the ridgeline all the way to Evans Mountain Saddle. As he was wearing bright orange and stayed on the south sides of the slopes, we were able to keep him in sight as we descended the ridge to Buehman Canyon. 

Sirena's post is a recommended read if you are considering this and I won't duplicate what she wrote in detail here. Our experiences were similar until we left the Brush Corral Trail at the bottom of the ridge. From the moment we started dropping down the ridge, it was apparent the trail would be difficult to follow. It was a lot steeper than I anticipated and the trail seemed to disappear and reappear quite suddenly. This was some elevation above the grassland ecosystem so it was easier to follow by looking at the rocks on the ground. Where the trail disappeared into a thicket of manzanita, the compressed pattern of rock shards would still betray the evidence of a trail and we could skirt the thicket and pick up the trail on the other side. At this elevation, too, there was not much contrast in brushiness between the north and south-facing slopes, although it began to change quickly as we dropped several hundred feet over a quarter mile. After a half mile or so we found the need to side-hill around a craggy outcrop. One of us went over the top and had an easier time than the side-hilling counterparts, who had difficulty finding good footing on the steep slopes. This would become a theme, and, later, a strategy, as the day wore on. Contouring around hills was evaluated against the need to avoid gaining too much elevation that you would have to drop vs. the desire to avoid awkward footing contouring over loose rocks and grass.

Looking down the ridge where the Brush Corral "Trail" takes you. The drainage on the right hooks around the pointed hill in the center of this photograph and joins Buehman Canyon at the same place that the Evans Mountain Saddle canyon joins. 

Ryan side-hills near the top of the ridge coming down Brush Corral Trail, soon after the drop. I recommend going over the top, whereas Desert Sirena recommended the side-hill route, as Ryan demonstrates above.

Mammillaria heyderi?

An unusual spire of rocks towering dozens of feet above the canyon floor on our right can be seen catching the sun's first light below Guthrie Mountain. This memorable landmark was visible for most of the day.

Typical of the "easy" portions of the upper ridge coming down Brush Corral Trail. The gentler slopes were open grass with oaks and manzanitas preferring the north slopes (and steeper ridge sections).

A nice runnable grassy section near the bottom of the ridge.

After contouring around the rock outcrop the ridge flattened a bit and the ridge became more dominated by an open grassy ecosystem. In places, there were trails (game trails?) and we even found much of it runnable, and we made good time going down. As we neared the bottom of the ridge the trail almost suddenly became obvious and we ran across an established camp. I figured this trail was routinely accessed from the San Pedro side given the obvious increase in usage. The sound of gunshots to the east supported this hypothesis. However, we lost the trail going out of the camp and decided to drop downhill to the north and follow a small drainage down into Buehman Canyon. We were pretty sure the trail did NOT descend yet but at this point we knew we were no more than a half mile from the bottom of the ridge and needed to get into Buehman Canyon anyway. After dropping into this little drainage we encountered a partially stowed-away camp. Somebody had rolled up a tarp and hung some rope and some propane in a Mexican blue oak over a very pleasant camp site. We followed the drainage down into the main trunk of Beuhman Canyon.

Traversing a rocky section of the side-canyon coming off the ridge as we dropped into Buehman Canyon

Right above the intersection with Buehman Canyon the cottonwoods pop out.

Part Three: Buehman Canyon to Evans Mountain 

Segment: 1:25, total: 3:53
Distance: 2.4 mi (includes the 0.4 from Evans Mountain to Evans Saddle)
Net elevation change: 1460 ft (445 m)
Total elevation gained: 1782 ft (543 m)
Total elevation lost: -322 ft (-98 m)

We found ourselves in the thick of cattle country and following the canyon meant hopping over cow pies with every step. A few cows pushed up the ridge ahead of us as we entered Evans Mountain Canyon. I don't know if this canyon has a name, but I'll just call it that. There was no sign of a trail nor any sign of where a trail might be. Since the maps I had seen had a trail going up this canyon I figured from this point on we were on our own. By this point we had long grown accustomed to running without a trail so our small crew of five pushed on. 

This Google Earth screenshot shows where we thought there was a trail (white, coarsely drawn) vs. where we actually traveled (thick blue line shows GPS track).

We even found a couple pools of water as we entered the narrow mouth of this canyon, but the pools might as well have been embedded in solid cattle poo. It was gorgeous, with the cottonwood and ash turning bright yellow, the poison ivy a deep scarlet, the deep reds and vibrant greys and whites of the canyon walls, but also quite stinky. As we pressed on up the canyon, the cows on the ridge descended in front of us and soon we were herding them up the canyon. As we ascended, the small herd picked up idle cows and the herd continued to grow...,

Left to right: Ryan, Caitlin, Mike, and Celia

This little calf wanted to go with us, I'm pretty sure.

Before long, the canyon forked and the cows took the right fork. I was expecting this fork from the Google Earth recon we had done so we took the left fork. However, we were quickly enmeshed in Wait-a-minute (Acacia biuncifera) and decided to climb the hill to the ridge and follow the ridge up. As a group we had learned to appreciate the straight-forward approach of the ridge. 

Mike and Celia climbing towards the ridge through an ocotillo-studded grassland

When we got to the ridge, there was an obvious trail. Looking down the ridge, it looked like a pretty well-established trail descending at least a half-mile along the ridge. We debated whether this was the real Evans Mountain Trail and ultimately decided it probably was. However, upon returning to civilization, I looked closely at the aerial photography and surmised that it is just a well-worn game trail. That said, if you find yourself in Beuhman, get up to this ridge ASAP and your way will be much easier.

The climb up was a little tougher than our previous off-trail way-finding through the grassland just because going uphill is harder. But when we got to the top, we were surprised to find a trail following the ridge. It could also be seen in the distance, descending the ridge as far as we could see. I would later go home and look at aerial photos and decide that this was simply a well-worn game trail that conducts cattle and game from the Beuhman Canyon watershed to the Davis Spring watershed. As Stacey would point out when we met him at the saddle, a barbed-wire fence extended all the way along the ridgeline he had followed and also supported a parallel trail in places. At Evans Mountain saddle a large open gate allows cattle and game to pass freely from one side to the other. Looking back, it all seems obvious. Every time we hit anything like a trail that was leading us up to that saddle, it was because the cattle were funneling themselves through this gate at the top of Evans Mountain Saddle:

A long barbed wire fence follows the ridge line along the Buehman Canyon/Davis Spring Canyon boundary and this large open gate sits atop the Evans Mountain Saddle, allowing cattle to roam freely between the two watersheds. When we found the trail on the ridge, thinking it was the "real" Evans Mountain Trail, we were really just following in the footsteps of thousands of cows making the annual pilgrimage to the other side of the mountain. Photo Mike Duer

After I returned home to investigate where this trail descended to Buehman Canyon (aka "where we went wrong"), it became quickly obvious that it was not an organized trail at all, but the product of cattle traversing the ridge to go over the saddle.

Just above Evans Mountain saddle with Evans Mountain looking like an actual peak in the background. The white-topped peak in the foreground is actually a giant block of quartz.

From the saddle the climb up the ridge to Evans Mountain was easy enough. 

Stacey, Mike, and Caitlin in the final march up Evans.

Catilin finishes in style

At the top was a flat outcropping with an open split in it. Buried in the split under some more rocks was a 16-oz mason jar with a rusted lid. As I pulled it up I was disappointed to see an inch and a half of standing water in it with the papers in it soaking wet. I opened it up and pulled the papers out. The pages were too wet to pull apart and almost impossible to read wet so I separated the three different writing pads and rolled them up separately, putting them back in the jar with the jar upside down beneath the rocks. I did manage to scratch "2016" into one of the sturdier pages. Hopefully they will dry out to become legible and the pages will not be too stuck together to pull apart, although I have strong doubts. Hopefully future parties will be able to read this little piece of history. In the meantime, we did find the page that Desert Mountaineer referenced...

Hanging out at the summit, looking for the famous glass mason jar with the historic registers.

Looking northwest, with Davis Spring Canyon in the distance, draining the Bufferfly Area. Some maps show the Evans Trail crossing the saddle and descending the drainage in the foreground to Davis Spring Trailhead.... Yeah, right!

The mason jar had standing water in the bottom and everything inside was soaked. The mason jar lid had become leaky over the dozens of years of sitting under the small stones marking its place. We replaced the jar and the lid after dumping it out and turned it upside down but the pages are wet and moldy. A future visitor should bring some waterproof paper and writing implements. And maybe a better container...

This entry, made famous in Desert Mountaineer's blog article from 2014, reads, "Trail? What Trail?" The date is written as April 4, 1994, by Jim Dunig.

Part Four: Evans Mountain to Brush Corral Shortcut Trail

Segment 2:57, 6:50
Distance: 4.0 (includes the 0.4 from Evans Mountain to Evans Saddle)
Net elevation difference: 538 ft (164m)
Total elevation gained: 2129 ft (649m)
Total elevation lost: -1591 ft (-485m)

As noted before, we separated from Stacey just below the shortcut trail and descended Brush Corral Trail while he skirted the Buehman Canyon watershed by following the ridge to the north, wrapping all the way around to Evans Mountain saddle. Surprisingly, although his route to the saddle was a mile further, and ours included an additional 500 feet of both descending and climbing, we arrived at the saddle at the same time. We certainly benefitted from some of the light slopes in the open grassy lower elevations on the ridge, but the group decided to follow the shorter, less "vert-y" ridge back nevertheless. 

I won't post as much detail here because the story was somewhat similar as we went along, plus as fatigue wore in my camera recorded fewer images and my memory retained fewer details. Partly, the route was more monotonous and fewer details stand out now in retrospect. We tried to keep on the left (south-facing) slopes and followed the ridges between the peaks. Some of us stayed on the ridges and went over every peak while some of us side-sloped the peaks and tried to cut from saddle to saddle. It was slow going, and none was really runnable. The first two miles were mostly along an east-west-oriented slope with a grassy south-slope and an oak/pinyon/manzanita north slope, but as the ridge turned to the south, the ridges became harder to traverse, as the manzanita filled in all the north-facing slopes while even the south-facing slopes were wooded.

Fairly typical of the ridge-running on the east-west section in the first mile or two west from Evans Mountain saddle

We clearly weren't the first ones through here.

Two little shortcuts worth mentioning -- around two miles from the saddle, the ridge briefly jaunts south, and then veers back to the west at almost a right angle before heading south again. There were significant benefits to side-sloping on the north and south slopes of two little peaks that defined the jaggedness to the ridge there. However, after that, the ridge was almost due south through intermittent thickets of manzanita. As we pressed through the manzanita, getting stuck, scratched, and bleeding, we started to learn that the best approach when no route was obvious was to veer left, to the eastward side of the slope to get around the densest patches of manzanita. This little piece of sage advice could help a future party bleed from 255 cuts instead of 282.

Part Four: Brush Corral Trail back to Upper Green Mountain Trailhead

Segment 1:06, total 7:56
Distance: 2.7 mi
Net elevation difference: 1174ft (358m)
Total elevation gained: 1948 ft (594m)
Total elevation lost: 774 ft (236m)

We waited for the group once we got back to the Brush Corral Trail proper and then ran/hiked back to the car at Upper Green Mountain Trailhead as Ryan and I had some explaining to do when we got back home, having intended to get back by noon and it was looking more like a 4pm arrival... I did my best to keep up with Ryan as we ran the flats and power hiked the hills going up that long slog. It's a long climb back uphill to get to the Green Mountain Trail, and once you get there, it is really easy to miss the turn back to the Trailhead. In fact, I missed it the only other time I ran the Brush Corral Trail, so I paused at the junction to make the cairn a bit more obvious. If you do miss it, you end up at San Pedro Vista, which is a quarter mile up the Highway from the TH. Not a huge deal, but disorienting if you aren't expecting it. After the cairn it's a short little climb back up the snow-covered path to the last little saddle before we got to the car. Our total time was 7:55:46, including stoppages for every reason.

Another "easy" section snaking through the Ceanothus. See it? Looks like a superhighway after the previous 7 hours...

Back in the pines heading up to the saddle (Photo Mike Duer)

Final thoughts

I don't know if taking the ridge back was any faster than it would have been if we had dropped back through Buehman Canyon. There were some nice open stretches both on the way down from Evans Saddle (which we had mostly hiked up) and up the long ridge from Brush Corral Trail which we took advantage of by running. Most hikers probably wouldn't run this, but we picked up some time there. If we had hiked straight through, Stacey would surely have beaten us to the saddle by 30 minutes or more. On the other hand, Stacey found the ridge unrunnable, as did we. 

From a pure metrics standpoint, here are the comparisons between the ridge route vs. the canyon route:

The total mileage was 3.5 vs. 4.6.
Total elevation gained was 1494 ft vs 1942 ft.
Total elevation lost was 2000 ft vs 2465 ft.
Travel time: identical (although the canyon folks picked up time by running)

Here's my quick summary of pros/cons of the two. Stacey may have more to say since he traversed the ridge in both directions:

Pros of traverse: less distance, less climbing

Cons of transverse: more manzanita, more side-sloping, more scrambling around rocks, no water unless you have snow, less diverse landscapes

Pros of Buehman Canyon: longer, more sustained sections of grass, reassuring cairns and markers, possible water in canyon, more diverse landscapes

Cons of Buehman Canyon: longer overall, more climbing overall

As it was, Stacey's ridge route and our canyon route got us there at the same time. If you are evaluating the two, consider the type of navigating you would like to do; slower, with more rocky traverses and manzanita-parting, or slightly quicker, but with more distance and more climbing, and occasionally the hint of a trail. Regardless, I hope this post gives you more information to decide if, when, and how you are going to ascend Evans Mountain.

You can see the track and download the GPX track from the strava event page:

Strava screenshot showing the route we took, overlaid with some photo thumbnails. The link for the strava event is: https://www.strava.com/activities/800058185. You can download the GPX trace from Open Street Map: http://www.openstreetmap.org/trace/2321034/data

From the summit of Evans Mountain, Ryan points out a slightly lower, but possibly more interesting peak to explore, or perhaps beyond, to the Galiuro Mountains' tantalizing Redfield Canyon. 

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Burro Fire Update

Update -- On June 30, 2017, a wildfire started near Reddington Pass and burned across most of this route. I have not been back but it is likely that a lot of the densest patches of oak and manzanita have been burned and may currently present less of a navigational challenge.

Official incident page for the fire: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/article/5301/36451/

The red outline shows the final extent of the Burro Fire with the white lines showing our route down Buehman Canyon and back along the Ridge (Stacey's Route) and the green arrow/star showing Evans Mountain.

Officials posted some helicopter footage from July 5 (Posted on FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/BurroFireInfo/videos/1813377065355841/?hc_location=ufi). I took some frames from the video and cross-referenced them in Google Earth to give an idea of where this fire burned and what it looked like at the time. It looks like they flew the helicopter over Davis Canyon, looking at the Evans Mountain and Beuhman Canyon area from the north.

Evans Mountain is denoted in the green arrows below: