After hiking the Cemetery trail we decide to visit the Harshaw Ghost Town near Patagonia. We do not know a lot about it as otherwise we would have understood that the major attraction is again…a cemetery. We really are not enamored of cemeteries, it just so happened that this were the major points of interest for the two attractions we visited. In this case the main cemeteries is across a large creek and we spend some time debating whether we should cross it or not.
In the end we decide to cross carefully, we are here already so it would be a bummer to not actually visit the cemetery itself. It is actually quite large and reasonably well maintained.
It also houses many old graves from founders of the town and ranches in the area. It is a peaceful place and we explore it for a while before we decide to look for the town proper.
To our surprise there isn’t really that much left from the town, only the ruins of one building abutting private property. There might have been more ruins on the private side but access is prohibited.
However following a cache we discover something else that is unexpected on the public land. There is a second, possibly smaller cemetery, in the forest that is not really maintained. It is quite spooky to encounter an unmaintained cemetery and we walk carefully to avoid as much as possible stepping on graves.
Interestingly a lot of the tombstones are well preserved even though they were not maintained. Clearly the headstones were of quality as they survived 100+ years,
We know return back towards Patagonia for one more visit to Paton Hummingbird Garden hoping for javelinas. On the way we see a few deer, a positive sign from the universe that maybe our quest will end in success today.
