Peak 7115 - Dragoon Mountains, AZ

Overview
Peak 7115 is about 1.25 miles North of China peak, as the crow flies. Much of the hike follows a fence line across a ridge but there's a way to avoid some of the brush by taking a road called FS 345 A for part of the hike.


Hike
There are 2 decent ways to summit this peak. The shortest and most direct way is to follow FS 697 North to China Peak. It is possible to drive up much of this road, especially the lower section, but it gets quite steep near the top. After about 2 miles up FS 697 you will pass through a natural gateway in the rock and at the 2.2-mile mark, you will see some campsites on the left side of the road. You can walk or drive this part of the road but I found it enjoyable to walk the road.Continue taking this road to China Peak. Once at the official peak, you will see a fence line heading North and a faint trail following the fence line. You'll want to follow this trail. There are times when the brush gets thick but there always seems to be a way around it. There are times when you may want to cross the fence line because there are areas where the brush is thinner on one side than the other. Continue following the fence line for roughly 0.5 miles. After 0.5 miles, the brush becomes thicker and I found it easier to head East, going down the hill to the road (FS 345 A) which is only about 0.25 miles down. Once on the road, follow it for roughly 0.5 miles. You will travel North and then West and then reach a pass. The original fence line re-appears at this pass.

From this point, I found it easiest to follow the fence line along the ridge. The trail was pretty easy to follow although there were probably 2 or 3 rrushy areas along the way. I was able to get around each of these areas. Again, there are times when you will want to cross the fence because the terrain looks easier on the other side. You will need to travel a total of 0.9 miles from the pass along the ridgeline to get to the peak. When getting close to the peak, you will need to curve to the West to get to the high point. At this high point, I found a registry with names going back to 2011.

To get back down you can follow the same route you took to get here or once you are on FS 345 A, you can take that all the way down and back to the parking area near FS 697. I decided to take FS 345 A all the way back because it was uncharted territory for me. Even though it's longer in terms of distance, you won't need to re-climb China Peak to get back to the road.

2023-05-25 Mike_W