A Range Of Diversity

The following day, 15-year-old Jimmy Sparks, Will's son, and I went off on an overnight trip, intending to traverse the main summit of the Huachucas and see what was abroad there. As far as we could tell, nothing was moving in the snow squalls and deep drifts at 8,300 feet. The last significant track we found was a good one, indisputably made by a mountain lion. The animal had hurriedly crossed the ridge through a col. We sensed that by the time the lion reached the top he had decided that whatever he originally had in mind was a mistake. We soon came to the same conclusion. At 9,000 feet the snow was four feet deep but still so soft and dry that even with snow-shoes we sank into it up to our hips. After wallowing for a while we, like the Hon, gave up and turned down to camp at the head of Sawmill Canyon. We packed out the next day without reaching the summit, traveling, in ecological terms, from Canada to Arizona in the course of a 4,000-foot descent. When we started, Jimmy had said he wanted to be an Arctic explorer when he grew up; when we finished he said he thought exploring jungles might be better.

On the last day I went up Montezuma Canyon to the old cabin where we had lived during the coati study. I was alone, as I preferred to be because of the ghosts and emotions the place arouses. At an old stock tank where we had swum and drawn water I found chulo tracks and then a chulo, an old male grumpily turning over mine tailings looking for lizards or whatever. He could have been a lonely survivor of the tribe we knew, one of the cubs of our day, or a pioneer, the forerunner of a new tribe coming to reoccupy the canyon. Either way it was a satisfying finale for me, for as Will had said, you don't get a better day for trailing, or for almost anything else, than the one we had in Copper Glance canyon on this mountain island.