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| Hiking | 12.50 Miles |
2,740 AEG |
| | Hiking | 12.50 Miles | | | |
| 2,740 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | These trails are both pretty much disasters. We started out going up the South Fork Deer Creek trail, and the only real option is to stay in the creek bottom. There is some light bouldering in the upper half of the trail. There really is no trail once one enters the creek bottom. The top around FR 201 is pretty, however, with a decent ponderosa-douglas fir forest.
We decided to bushwhack from about 3/4 of the way up South Fork Deer Creek trail up to the Davey Gowan Trailhead. That's when it started to rain. The rest of the trip the rain either spat on us or completely dumped on us. We started down the Gold Ridge Trail, and it started out nice enough. Nice grade, interesting mix of ponderosa forest and areas of mixed fire recovery, easy to follow....then it vanished, and we had the pleasure of bushwhacking all of the way from about where it vanished back over to the South Fork Deer Creek Trail. Our final canyoneering descent into the creek bottom was in the dark. Walking out of the creek bottom in the dark wasn't so tough because the alternating illumination sources of the intermittently cloud-cloaked moon and lightning gave a little help. Water was flowing the entire way. We way overshot the portion of the trail that left the creek bottom back towards the car, and ended up making it to the Beeline Hwy. Then we walked back to the car. These trails aren't recommended, and most certainly not if one is going to make a bunch of stupid decisions. My new Arizona pinstriping job will remind me of that for a number of days. |
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