Hike Big Horn Peak Big Horn Mountains Wilderness Area, AZ

Big Horn Peak is a fun desert peak just off the Interstate. Though it requires a long walk through open desert, the scrambling toward the summit makes up for it. Adam Walker recommended this one to me, and I'm glad I added it in at the end of the day. I'm personally not a fan of hiking on government property with a "4 months in prison" warning, so I opted ignore the standard beta for the approach which requires you to hop a gate. I instead followed the fenceline for a bit and sure enough, I was able to locate a route into the wilderness area without hopping the fence. An easy walk through the desert ensues, the ascent ridgeline obvious pretty much the whole way. you'll notice Big Horn Peak has two layers, like a cake. The first layer is easy to get to, and then the fun begins as you ascend cake layer 2. You also pass some blocked off ruins along the way, though I have no idea for what they were used.

After you head up the approach slope to the ridgeline, Class 2 stuff leads you to the second cake layer's base, where you have to work hard to avoif cholla cacti as you reach a weakness in the southwestern cliff faces. I'm sure there are multiple ways up the first bit of this section, but eventually you'll want to work your way to the east to bypass some gnarly cliffs. There were cairns from here to the summit, along with a couple of short Class 3 moves and an avoidable (though fun) vertical wall of solid rock. The somewhat tricky route-finding is over as you reach the summit ridgeline, and you'll be greeted by a crux, a Class 3 blocky scramble. The views are lovely, especially to the north, and you can sign an over-stuffed summit register (it was full of useless recycled pieces of paper and about 7 pens, but I didn't clear it out because maybe they had value or something maybe?). Return the way you came. My route down the upper cake layer was different from my ascent, so I combined the two into the best route on the map attached.