The Montezuma Pass, at an elevation of 6,575 feet, offers sweeping views of the San Pedro River Valley to the east and of the San Rafael Valley to the west in southern Arizona contiguous to the Mexico border. The top of the pass also serves as a parking area for hikers using the Coronado National Memorial’s hiking trails and the connecting U.S. Forest Service trails in the Huachuca Mountains. The Yaqui Ridge Trail is the southern terminus of the 790-mile Arizona Trail that traverses the state from Mexico to Utah. At scenic vistas found along the trails, you can look toward the horizon and you can see the countryside through which explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led his company of soldiers and missionaries. It is a way for hikers along this trail to turn memories of yesteryear into a timeless keepsake for generations to come. Unfortunately, illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and possibly terrorists are destroying this timeless keepsake.
When starting one’s hike from the Coronado National Memorial the following posted sign message is presented to hikers: “Smuggling and/or illegal entry is common in this area due to the proximity of the international border. Please be aware of your surroundings at all times and do not travel alone in remote areas.”
American citizens read and hear daily of the many ramifications that illegal immigration has on our society. One ramification that we do not read or hear is how illegal immigrants entering our borders along with drug smugglers and possibly terrorists, are desecrating our pristine wilderness areas with discarded copy rolex daytona mens rolex calibre 7750 mingzhu engine 116598rbow automatic waste. The section of national park trails, forest trails and military reservation lands covering the Huachuca Mountains have become a major artery for smuggling humans and controlled substances into the United States. This incursion has damaged hiking trails and polluted the once pristine land to where certain segments of the trails look more to be urban garbage gffactoryrolex dumps rather than unspoiled wilderness.
Recently, I hiked a leg of the Arizona Trail, a twenty-five mile section from Fort Huachuca Military Reservation of the United States Army at Sierra Vista, Arizona to the southern terminus signpost at the international border between Mexico and the United States just below the Coronado National Memorial and Montezuma Pass. The section of the Arizona trail goes through parts of the Coronado National Memorial of the U.S. Park System, connecting with the U.S. Forest Service lands and northward through the military grounds of the United States Army’s Fort Huachuca Military Reservation as the trail winds it way up to Utah.
As I hiked the 25-mile section of trails from Fort Huachuca Military Reservation of the U.S. Army to the southern terminus point of the Arizona trail at the Coronado National Memorial I was appalled at the garbage and trash scattered along the trail. Thousands of plastic containers, thousands of aluminum cans, huge quantities of paper debris, clothing of all types from jackets, jeans, undergarments, shirts, shoes, belts, blankets along with discarded backpacks, canvas suitcases, etc. lined the trails that I hiked. Smugglers of human traffic, drugs and possibly national terrorists, are turning the memories of a timeless keepsake of beautiful, pristine vistas into a wilderness waste disposal dump.
To access the hiking trails that go through the Fort Huachuca Military Reservation of the United States Army one is stopped at the main gate of the fort by a dozen security personnel, asking for proper identification documents, purpose of one’s visit, and possibly, a search of one’s vehicle. The hiker must produce legal documents to establish his identification before driving to the trailheads located on the military reservation. The required documents are a drivers’ license, proof burberry 15119 fashionable t shirts of insurance and vehicle registration, or if one is driving a rental car, a copy of the rental car agreement.
The irony in U.S. citizens presenting these required legal documents to army security personnel to access the fort’s military grounds is that concomitantly while showing these legally called for documents to gain access at the main gate of the army military base, human smugglers and their pack train of illegal immigrants, along with drug smugglers and possibly terrorists all have “unfettered” access to the military grounds on its back gate, showing no required documentation for entry. The evidence is powerful, because once a hiker starts up the canyon trails to access the Arizona trail that goes through the military reservation, the hiker is confronted with ample evidence of the garbage dumps on display where illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and possibly terrorists have changed clothes, eaten, drank, slept and used the restroom, outdoors.
Another irony is that the current Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States, Senator John McCain from alexander mcqueen 9756 unisex fashionable slippers the great state of Arizona, concedes that he is the expert on “national security,” and he is running his presidential campaign on this political tenet. Concurrently, while he touts this assurance to the American public an invasion of illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and possibly terrorists are coming into the United States via one of our nation’s most popular wilderness hiking trails and land military reservation that lies in Mr. McCain’s backyard.
My writing the above is not to malign the good senator, or to reflect negatively on the United States Army, U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, or on the wonderful folk who work in our Border Patrol federal agency. I am simply denoting that the failure of our nation’s political leaders to close access of our borders to illegal human traffic and drugs is costing this nation significantly, in environmental damage to our pristine wilderness lands. I pray that our nation’s leaders soon will gain the needed political courage to make the hard decisions on a complex issue, illegal immigration, before we destroy beyond repair the timeless keepsake of the few precious vestiges we have remaining of the beautiful southern desert areas along our border states.
Jerry Doyle
jerrywdoyle@msn.com
