Hike Copper Mountains High Point Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Base, AZ

Feb 25, 2023 — We originally intended to spend three days in the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Base and the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, but fortunately we're all flexible with planning for forecasted poor weather. This meant the Copper Mountains High Point was our single hike in the area, and another trip will have to happen in order to go deeper into this remote region of southwestern Arizona. Not only is this a far drive from everything, you also need a permit to access the military base. We all did our part by obtaining said permits and checking in online before entering and setting up camp. My car being parked closest to the road the night before, I was woken up first by law enforcement's headlights. Confident I'd left my permit on the dashboard, I cautiously opened my door to a blinding flashlight. The officer was incredibly nice and apologied for waking me. I mentioned the permit, but he didn't seem to care (that doesnt mean don't get one!), just making sure everything was alright and we were comfortable. How sweet.

The road leading here (32.52034, -113.95853) was fine for any vehicle, but it deteriorated a bit when heading south to the trailhead near Betty Lee Tank. We set out on foot along an old mining road and entered the major drainage on the east side of Copper Mountains High Point. Almost immediately we were confronted with numerous granitic boulder-hopping obstacles. I never really know how to grade bouldery wash scrambles, Class 2, 3? Sometimes there's an unnecessary Class 4 move we pulled for fun and/or convenience, but you can probably keep the route Class 2/2+ if you wanted to. This was sort of the theme of the entire route, and without much variance. There's also a bit of catclaw along the way, so that's fun. I personally enjoyed the physicality of the scrambling, but it did sort of get old and I think we've all experienced enough granitic peaks similar to this before and therefore weren't impressed.

Shortly after entering the canyon and ascending we reached an old concrete dam, the history of which none of us knew nor really cared to find out. So onward we continued. In the required video we needed to watch before entering the base, it warned an absurd number of times not to touch "unexploded ordnance" if any is found. Of course this meant we joked about everything being ordnance: an old aircraft turbine we stumbled upon, barrel cacti, Chris' body, etc. We needed to stay occupied somehow in order to get through this tedious route. The drainage led upward, the only real highlight being a short water-carved slot that offered some good scrambling.

Rather than ascend all the way up the drainage, since the terrain became nearly-vertical farther up, we left this main drainage and ascended through a wide gully leading north (Class 2/3). This gully led to a sloped portion of the hike, finally a stretch without catclaw and boulders. The views also opened up and it was pretty cool to see just how much granite can be concentrated in a place. It took a bit of navigating to find a way up to the east ridge of the peak since it quickly became a wall of granite. With minimal (but notable) effort we managed a Class 2/3 gully sequence to gain the ridge, and then we stuck to the crest to the summit for the most part, despite the pretty chilly wind trying to knock us off. The scrambling here was a bit more interesting, too.

We peered across the canyon to the south at another high-prominence peak we'd intended to also hike today. However, none of the group seemed keen on more tedious boulder-hopping, so we returned to the cars with other plans in mind for the remainder of the day.