Escudilla Mountain and Lookout Tower

Author's Comments

Aldo Leopold wrote about this mountain, and you can feel the weight of that as you climb. Escudilla is not a place that announces itself. It rises quietly out of the eastern Arizona high country, the third-highest peak in the state, and the trail to the summit moves through spruce and fir so dense that for long stretches you forget you are climbing anything at all. Then the trees thin, and the lookout tower appears against the sky, and you are at almost eleven thousand feet. I prefer this trail in late September. The aspens along the lower stretches have started to turn, and the light at that altitude has a clarity that lower country never quite achieves. Mornings are the time. The afternoon storms build fast in summer and they are not subtle when they arrive, so I am usually on the trail by six and at the summit before the weather has any opinions. The lookout tower itself is the obvious subject. It earns the attention. But what I keep photographing is the meadow at Terry Flat in early light, the long views east into New Mexico from the summit ridge, the particular way the spruce forest holds shadow even at midday. Bring a wide lens for the summit. Bring something longer for the layered ridges that fall away from the peak in every direction. Bring more layers than you think you need. This is a quiet mountain. Most people drive past Alpine on their way to somewhere else and never know it is here. That is part of what it offers.

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