THE AMAZING WORLD OF WILDERNESS A Journey Through the High Country of Baldy

By Anne Groebner

The high country on the eastern slopes of Mount Baldy entices all levels of hikers to seek adventure among the towering trees, babbling brooks and beautiful meadows on the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest. Outside of the San Francisco Peaks, Mount Baldy is the second highest peak in Arizona. It not only rewards many avid hikers with bragging rights for over fourteen miles of exhilarating climbing and descending but rewards them with breathtaking views as well. The three trails within the Forest Service Mount Baldy Wilderness area are the West Baldy Trail (7 miles), the East Baldy Trail (7 miles) and the 3.5-mile Crossover Trail connector at the bottom, which completes a 17.5-mile loop. I have accomplished the feat of hiking the entire loop but only to have the bragging rights. Now I just hike either the West or the East and then descend back down the way I came. This past week, however, I joined the Pinetop-Lakeside hiking group T.R.A.C.K.S. for a hike along the Crossover Trail and, although it is a much shorter trail and not as challenging, I would have to say that it was one of my favorite hikes this summer — of course, it helps if you have a trail guide who is a retired forester from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (B.I.A.) with 35 years of experience in just about every aspect of forestry. Ron Miller retired from the B.I.A. a few years ago and since then has led hikes and has brought our attention to the many, many minute details of the secret, living world of the woods — and I find it extremely fascinating! He led our group along the rolling hills of the Crossover Trail and into another universe — one that included a secret garden, a feather tree and a marriage on the rocks. I truly believe that you are never too old to learn something new but, after crossing over, I had no idea how much I didn’t know. “There are three aspects to the area we call Mount Baldy,” Miller told us. “Cultural, ecological and legal or political.” Culturally, Mount Baldy is a sacred mountain to the White Mountain Apaches and, if you look at their seal (SEE PAGE 2), you will see a mountain in the center. The late Chairman Ronnie Lupe once described it — in 1979, when the new seal was designed — “The Creator of the Apaches has blessed them with a beautiful way of life symbolized by the life sustaining waters flowing from the melting snows of the White Mountain — a mountain of Sacredness.” The black star on the right of the seal represents this sacred peak. The West and the East Trails meet at about 11,200 feet at the boundary of the White Mountain Apache Reservation and travelers along the Trails are not permitted any higher than this marker. “We in the White Mountains are really fortunate because many tree and animal species reach their most southern extent or their most northern extent here,” Miller began as he explained the ecological aspect of the Mount Baldy area. The majority of the Engelmann spruce range is up in Canada but it extends all the way down here in Arizona. It’s tied to the elevation and there is a circle of these trees around Mount Baldy. Unfortunately, there has been an outbreak of spruce aphids in the spruce-fir forest surrounding Mount Baldy. The Forest Service conducts annual aerial surveys to check on insect and disease outbreaks within forested areas and found a disturbing trend on increasing damage from these insects that started with several hundred acres and kept increasing until the entire spruce-fir forest surrounding Mount Baldy was infected. “Aphids are not terribly efficient at killing trees — at first,” Miller stated, “but if the infestation lasts year after year, they will eventually kill a tree.” At first, Miller told us, it was just 4,000 acres, then 8,000 acres, until it was the entire 43,000 acres of the spruce/fir type. “These little green aphids with red eyes are sucking insects and they start killing the tree’s needles from the inside of the crown,” Miller warned. “They don’t get the new growth at first but eventually can kill the tree when their populations increase to such an extent that they desiccate the tree.” One year, you will lose some foliage — and that’s not bad — two years is still okay but the third and fourth years, the tree starts to die. It’s a major concern for the Tribe and everybody else that this little isolated pocket of Engelmann spruce could be gone — and it’s not the only thing that worry foresters. There is a mistletoe (an external parasite that steals nutrients from a tree) that grows in the spruce and there are spruce bark beetles. When the trees are weakened from drought or the aphids, then the bark beetles will come in and wipe out an entire stand. The good news is aphids are a soft-bodied insect and a hard winter will kill them. “There are still a lot of trees here,” Miller commented, “and we are grateful for that.” The third aspect is that Mount Baldy is a designated wilderness area on both the Forest Service side and the tribal side. The Forest Service Mount Baldy Wilderness, at a mere 7,079 federal acres, is one of the smallest wilderness areas in the system. The Wilderness Preservation System, which was signed into law in 1964 by Lyndon B. Johnson, was established to preserve wild lands in order to “preserve and protect lands in their natural condition” and includes its own set of rules. Beyond the Forest Service land, the Fort Apache Reservation also has wilderness status as a tribal wilderness area. As we trekked past meadows and through forests, Miller pointed out anomalies that on any other hike would have been missed. For example, a southwest white pine which was missing a huge chunk of bark with teeth-mark lines in both directions — clearly from a large animal. “Southwest white pines are related to the sugar pine and contain sweet sap,” Miller said. “We know that…but more importantly, the bears know that.” Bears come to Baldy in the spring when the sap is starting to run and there isn’t a lot of other food available to them. They eat under the bark. If they don’t girdle the tree (eat all the way around it), then the tree can still survive. Right next to the southwestern pine, there is a huge Douglas-fir — “a massive, wonderful looking tree!” Miller exclaimed. “One way you can tell them apart,” he said. “is that the southwest white pine has large cones that hang down on the furtherest part of their branches and they contain winged seeds.” The seeds rain down like little helicopters and can scatter their seeds further than other trees such as a ponderosa pine or Douglas-fir. Douglas-fir has little cones with scales and bracts. Miller described it as looking like “the back end of a mouse in a trap with his tail and little feet hanging out.” The Douglas-fir we’re standing under is obviously very old and the bark is very thick (a natural fire protectant). The canopy circumference is huge and Miller tells us that this old fir has taken over the area and nothing can grow under its shady branches and its extended biomass. He figured that, because of the wilderness status of Mount Baldy, trees have never been harvested so some of these trees are older than our country (approximately 300-400-years) — which reminds me of what Tom Jernigan (author of “The Silent Witness”), told me. “A tree never dies of old age.” In fact, Miller said he is amazed at how long some trees survive because “they only get one shot at life. It will either survive in that spot and no matter the weather or what else comes by that may affect it, for something to have lived for that many years in one spot is tremendous to think about.” As we continued our hike, we came to some short, squatty Engelmann spruce along the edge of a meadow. Their shape is carved by elk that feast on the new growth buds in early spring before the snow has melted off the grass. It is an act of desperation and not the most healthy as they may cause some cows to abort their calves. However, Miller said they tasted pretty good and have a lot of vitamin C. As soon as the tree grows to a height where the elk can no longer reach it, then it is released. “It will grow tall,” according to Miller, “but it creates a funny looking tree.” Our next stop is next to a dead tree — a snag. This particular snag was — or, judging by the pinecone scales carpeting the ground around the trunk, could still be — home to a squirrel. Miller showed us the tiny lines carved into the side of the snag which are from beetles and lets us know that a lot of different animals are able to utilize this tree even after it is dead. In the old days foresters would cut down snags because they worried they would start fires. Now they have discovered that they are much more valuable to wildlife. The ecosystem around Mount Baldy has been here a long time before us and fire has always played an important role. “What’s interesting,” Miller starts, “is that ecosystems are completely different and you need to know about all of the trees and their ecosystems.” For example, Miller says that ponderosa pine has a fire return interval of anywhere from 3 to 7 years. So, if lightning would strike and create a little ground fire that would sweep through the area and clean it up and it worked well. A spruce/fir fire return interval is more like 500 years and it is always a stand replacing fire. “So, if Mount Baldy ever goes,” Miller stated, “it’s gone.” They have had discussions among foresters and they say that it’s not “if,” it’s a matter of “when.” And with its wilderness status, there is not an option to thin it out and the consensus is that they want to keep it the way it is. On our approach to the next meadow, Miller veered off trail and took us to his secret garden. It is filled with tall stalks of flowering False Hellebore and, although this is a beautiful plant, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), it is also very poisonous to livestock. Miller explained to us that earlier that week he had witnessed scores of pollinating butterflies and black flies covering the flowers. The day we were there, there were very few. Because the flowers are white, Miller said that they are probably pollinated more by flies than an insect that is attracted to color. We continued to march across the moist, tall grasses to a riparian area where large shrubs called alder grew in abundance. “If you looked across this meadow and you saw alders growing,” Miller told us, “you would know that there was water there. Knowing about specific plants is good for survival purposes.” As we left the meadow and begin to enter the next island of trees, Miller stopped to point out a rock covered with lichen. Lichen is formed from a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae. Fungus cannot photosynthesize and algae can. “So, as the story goes,” Miller shared, “Freddy Fungus and Alice Algae took a lichen to each other and got together. Unfortunately, their marriage ended up on the rocks.” We trekked on through the forest and stopped under a corkbark fir. I, personally, have walked past these trees a thousand times and never even knew they existed. The bark resembles cork. The cones sit upright on the branches. The cones are deciduous upon maturity — they fall apart when mature — which is how they disperse their seeds. Miller suggested that the cones are hard to find. He did, however, find one a couple of days before on his pre-trail visit and hid it behind a log so he could show it to us. But wouldn’t you know… another squirrel had come along, claimed it and it was gone. But as we headed further along the Trail, we found the scales of one and Miller pointed out its purple, black and cream colors. He described the cone itself as really beautiful but you will only see one if you get there before the squirrels. We stopped a few steps from the end of the Trail where fallen trees provided several logs for us to sit, hydrate and enjoy food before we turned around and headed back to the East Baldy Trail head. It was amazing how much we had learned about the forest and its inhabitants. I believe it opens your mind and creates new vision into the secret lives of wildlife and the trees that make up our forests. It was incredible what the forest shared with us — all within view of the Trail. But I also know that, without Miller’s guidance and his wealth of knowledge, we probably would have walked right past all these wonders with our focus on our destination. What happened, however, is that we enjoyed the journey. The T.R.A.C.K.S. hiking group schedules hikes all through the spring, summer, and fall and then switches to cross-country skiing or snowshoeing in the winter. Check out their website at https://www.trackswhitemountains.org/trails/. They are always looking for new members. VISIT OUTDOORSSW.COM TO SEE MORE PHOTOS.