Hummingbird Springs Wilderness

Hummingbird Springs Wilderness is a 31,200-acre property just across the jeep trail northeast of the Big Horn Mountains Wilderness. On the northeast side of the property is Sugarloaf Mountain (3,418'), a steep and colorful escarpment. Most of the Hummingbird Springs Wilderness is a collection of hills, washes and bajadas covered with cholla, ocotillo, saguaro, mesquite, and paloverde. You'll find Gila monsters and kit foxes here, with mule deer, desert tortoise and desert bighorn sheep. Among the raptors you'll see prairie falcons, Cooper's hawks and golden eagles.

The backpacking is relatively easy, there's plenty of good, primitive campsites around, but there are no maintained trails in the area. Most of the area is rocky, but not so rocky that your ankles will suffer from the hiking. The hardest parts of a hike on this property will probably be those places where the washes are deeply cut into the surface, and you may have to hike a distance up or downstream to find an easier place to cross. There is a non-wilderness jeep trail tunneled into the area going to a catchment that collects the water flow from Hummingbird Springs. Hummingbird Springs itself is marked with a windmill and a set of corrals. That jeep trail is the separating line between Hummingbird Springs Wilderness and the Big Horn Mountains Wilderness to the southwest.

The south side of Hummingbird Springs Wilderness can be accessed by taking the Tonopah or Salome Road exits off the I-10 and following any of several dirt roads north that extend to the wilderness boundary. You can reach the northern boundary of the wilderness by following the Eagle Eye Road south from Aguila to any of several dirt roads that extend south from there to the wilderness boundary. The road conditions out here vary all over the place: bring high clearance on a 4WD and you'll be better off.

USGS Maps: Hummingbird Spring, Little Horn Peak, Burnt Mountain, Big Horn Peak