It’s always interesting to note how many times as a hiking club we repeat certain hikes, while other trails do not see the boots of Arizona Trailblazers for many years after the first visit. The Peralta Trail to Fremont Saddle or the Hunter Trail to the top of Picacho Peak, for instance, have each been hiked by the Trailblazers many times over the years. But I noticed that Table Top Mountain was last hiked by our predecessor, the Motorola Hiking Club, way back in November, 1998, nearly 16 years ago. So I thought it might be time to revisit this mountain after so many years have gone by.

Dave and Chuck on the South Peak of Table Top Mountain.
[photo by Dave]

Thus we find ourselves on a cool and windy day on February 10 hiking the trail to the top of this seldom visited mountain in the Table Top Wilderness area of the vast Sonoran Desert National Monument.

It turned out to be a great hike. We both made it to the top, and we had the mountain completely to ourselves since we never saw another soul for the entire day. Thanks for joining me, Dave.

Now flash forward a full month to March 9 and I’m back once again at the Table Top Mountain Trailhead, joined now by eight fellow Arizona Trailblazers, ready to tackle this mountain again.

The bumpy road to Table Top Mountain Trailhead. [photo by Wayne]

That last section is guaranteed to put your kidneys and bladder into overdrive, and everyone makes a mad dash for the restroom or the nearby trees as soon as we reach the trailhead. Or as Anikó more delicately puts it, we are all quite anxious to take a bio break.

This day is virtually identical to February 10, cool and windy at the trailhead with clear blue skies and a temperature of nearly 70 degrees. And it appears that we might have the mountain to ourselves once again since there are no other vehicles at the trailhead, and it’s been well over a week since anyone else has signed the trail register. The 34,400-acre Table Top Wilderness was created in 1990 and lies in the southeast corner of the vast Sonoran Desert National Monument just south of Interstate 8.

Created in 2001, the 496,000-acre Sonoran Desert National Monument preserves one of the most pristine and unspoiled sections of Arizona’s vast Sonoran Desert.

The time is 9:30 on a cool and beautiful Saturday morning in early March as we begin hiking on a long-abandoned dirt road in a northeast direction toward the base of Table Top Mountain, looming in the distance against a brilliantly blue Arizona sky. At 4,356 feet, Table Top Mountain is the highest point of the three mountain ranges that lie within Sonoran Desert National Monument. “Chuck, are you sure the mountain is only two miles away? It looks more like five miles to me. Just how long is this hike anyway?”

Brittlebush, up close and personal. [photo by Wayne]

The trail is relatively flat for a while as it follows the old dirt road, before beginning to wind up and down through a series of washes and traversing through a forest of giant saguaros, chain fruit, teddy bear and staghorn chollas, prickly pear cactus, and blooming ocotillos, creosote, and brittlebush.

Although not officially spring just yet, the warm spring-like weather we’ve been experiencing in recent weeks, coupled with the blooming flora of the Sonoran Desert, creates an almost intoxicating aroma wafting through the air as we hike onward toward the mountain.

After about a mile of hiking, the trail gradually starts to bend northward and begins a gradual, but steady, climb before heading due east toward the base of the mountain. We cross several large washes along the way as the trail moves around the base of the mountain. Beyond the two-mile point the trail begins a serious ascent up the west face of Table Top Mountain. At about three miles we encounter a massive rockslide consisting of thousands of tons of jumbled and blackened basalt boulders running for hundreds of feet down the mountainside. The trail then goes into a steep series of endless switchbacks as it continues to relentlessly claw its way up the west face of the mountain, gaining nearly 2,000 feet of elevation in the process.

The camera truly loves Anikó. [photo by Bill]

So she plans to make up for lost time on this hike as she tries to capture at least one of every flower species in bloom, as seen in the following series of colorful pictures. Where she manages to find all of these wildflowers still remains a mystery to me, since I never see the majority of the flowers she photographs. H’mm – I wonder. Do you suppose these are from Quy’s private collection of stock photos she always has on hand? No, just kidding Quy. Whenever I question her about this, she always tells me that I just need to open my eyes more and look around because the flowers are there and very easy to overlook. That’s for certain, since most of us probably don’t see all the flowers that Quy typically does. She definitely has an eye for her subject matter:

The footing gets a bit tricky as we continue to negotiate the switchbacks up the mountain, with lots of loose gravel and steep drop-offs along the way. If anyone loses their footing here and starts sliding, it could be a quick one-way trip down a very steep, rocky slope. And it’s a long, long way to the bottom. So we have to take our time and watch our footing carefully as we hug the inside edge of the trail. Coming back down through these loose talus sections is going to be even more challenging and treacherous. Using a couple of hiking sticks gives you a lot more stability on this type of terrain, but it’s still no guarantee that you won’t take a sudden and unexpected tumble.

As we get closer to the top of the mountain, we see several low-lying rock walls about five feet high and constructed from stacked basalt boulders, presumably taken from the rockslide. These walls are a bit of a mystery since no one really knows their history or the reason for their construction. Were they built by the Hohokams, who inhabited central Arizona several centuries ago and then seemingly vanished? We know the Hohokams constructed an ingenious network of desert canals for water delivery in the present-day Phoenix area, utilized and expanded centuries later by Salt River Project for its own water delivery system. Were these some sort of wind shelters or protective walls? We may never know for certain.

Five Trailblazers gather around the North Summit marker. [Bill]

Although we are already standing at 4,356 feet, the North Summit is another 17 feet higher and beckons irresistibly to Bushwhack Bill who decides to take a small contingent of hikers with him and head for higher ground to the north. So four of us hunker down to lunch against the chill winds on the South Summit, while Bill and four others head for the North Summit where they will await the same fate, if not worse.

Large century plant on Table Top Mountain. [photo by Wayne]

Although not quite as level as a table top, the top of this mountain is surprisingly wide and flat with lots of boulders and desert grasses, along with ocotillos, creosote, yuccas, prickly pear cactus, agaves like the one shown by Wayne in the process of pushing up its large flowering stalk, and various other shrubby plants. But not one single giant saguaro inhabits this mountain top: not a favorable environment for this giant of the cactus world.

While waiting for Bill and his group to return, we do a little exploring and find several small solar panels hidden among the boulders with attached wires and cables and eventually determine they are the power source for several small transmitters cleverly concealed among the rocks on the summit.

If you look closely at the picture taken by Chip, you can see a small silver antenna protruding from the top of the rock pile that conceals one radio.

Bill’s foot is firmly planted next to the USGS reference marker embedded in one of the boulders at the high point on the North Summit.

Lunch over, we watch Bill’s group slowly make their way back across the ridge to the South Summit, where we all join forces once again for the hike back down the mountain to the trailhead. I tell everyone to take their time and watch their footing very carefully on the way back down, especially through the loose talus sections where gravel and talus on a steep, smooth rock surface can be almost as bad as walking across a hard floor covered with ball bearings. On this trail an unexpected and out-of-control slide could be disastrous. That’s always a major concern when descending a steep trail like this.

As soon as we drop below the summit and start hiking in full sun, it’s almost as if someone turned off the wind machine. We are back to a gentle breeze once again and, warmed by the sun, most of us are soon down to T-shirts for the remainder of the hike. We make good time on the way back down with no major slip and slide incidents, and we’re all back at the trailhead just before 3:00 PM.

The total hiking time is a little over five hours.

We clean up and pack away our gear for the long, bumpy ride back to the town of Maricopa and an early dinner at Cilantro’s Mexican Cocina. It’s been yet another great hiking experience with terrific hiking companions in the beautiful Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona.