On Sunday, April 7, Matthias Stender, Wade Luther, and I climbed Orange Butte northeast of Bowie, Arizona. Orange Butte has 1040 feet of topographic prominence, placing it well down on the list of Arizona Prominence peaks. But it is quite visible to the north from Interstate Highway 10 between Willcox and the New Mexico state line. I was glad to have an opportunity climb Orange Butte with Matthias and looked forward to meeting Wade.

The three of us rendezvoused Sunday morning in the town of Bowie. From Bowie we caravanned north and east across the desert on good dirt roads.

Much of Orange Butte is surrounded by cliffs. On our climb of Whitlock Peak in March 2021 Matthias and I had noticed a ramp leading towards the Orange Butte summit on its northeast side. This time we found a good parking spot beside a water tank below the peak’s north face. We hiked into the NE gully and began climbing.

The NE gully steepened as we climbed, but we found adequate footing on the right margin of the gully. I was chatting away and neglected to take photos of our ascent of the gully. Matthias later graciously sent me some of his photos and I have shared a few of them above.

Eventually we topped out of the gully and walked over to the broad summit. On the way over I paused and photographed a pretty Arizona Hedgehog Cactus.

On the summit we added our names to the summit registry, ate lunch, and enjoyed the views of many surrounding mountains. Each mountain view reminded me of past climbs with good friends.

We carefully descended the same route back to our vehicles. Wade needed to head back to Phoenix that afternoon so we said goodbye to him. Matthias wanted to “bag” a short bonus peak nearby before leaving. I lingered near our parking spot photographing a few of the many desert wildflowers on display while waiting for his return. I later used iNaturalist.org to identify the wildflowers as best I could.

Mattias and I drove back to Bowie, then drove east and south towards the Chiricahua Mountains to a campsite in Wood Canyon. Andy Martin, a quite prolific peakbagger, was waiting for us for the next day’s climb. I enjoyed meeting Andy and the three of us spent an enjoyable evening and pleasant night beneath Dunn Springs Mountain, our next day’s goal.