Peak 1976 - White Tank Mountains, AZ

Patrick L gave me the idea for this hike. He uploaded a route, but did not include a description for me to attach my triplog to so, voila!


The hike starts out crossing some golf cart paths as the Phoenix metro creeps ever westward. I did the route counterclockwise, whereas Patrick L did it clockwise. Start out heading west, basically up the middle of the wash. As the wash turns northwest, you can stay in the wash or keep heading west a hundred yards to intersect the jeep trail, which would be a much easier go. Both eventually take you to the petroglyphs. The wash, which parallels the jeep trail about 100 yards north, is mostly sandy but not too deep. At the 1.5 mile mark, you will dead-end at a rock wall. There're several ways a non-technical climber such as myself could get up the wall, and I chose the easiest one, which is to the right/north.Once on top, curl around left the wall, south and east to the fenced-off petroglyphs. Wow, there's a lot of them!

After the petroglyphs, head west up the wash. I was looking for a trail up to Peak 1976, not realizing that Patrick L's route was off track. (There actually are north-south trails both east and west of Peak 1976, but none to the top. So, south up the hill ya go, picking your way carefully left and right to the top. (The west and southwest slopes appear considerably steeper.) 400 or so feet later, you will be at the very tippy top, 2025 ft., a hundred yards northwest of Peak 1976. Good views of raptors of both the feathered and jet-powered variety.

Patrick L's route continues southeast to Peak 1976, then down the steep southeast slope to the main jeep trail. Unless you want to check out that view, you've already peaked out, so an easier route down is east to the foot trail I mentioned earlier. You will hit the foot trail in the saddle directly south of the petroglyphs. Continue down that foot trail for a couple hundred yards to a foot trail split. Not sure where the left/east split goes, as it curls northeast. Take the right/south split, and within a minute, you will intersect with the main east-west jeep trail and the trail that goes northwest up the west side of Peak 1976. Book east up the jeep trail a little over a mile back to the trailhead.

2011-06-06 kingsnake & PatrickL