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| Hiking | 22.24 Miles |
5,875 AEG |
| | Hiking | 22.24 Miles | 12 Hrs 20 Mns | | 1.80 mph |
| 5,875 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | This was our annual Copper Camp loop "aka: heli-hike". This was our fifth time out. We started hiking at 7:45am. We made very good time to the old cabin on the Copper camp trail. It was great to see all the flowers and the cactus blossoming. It looked like someone rolled out a green blanket over the mountains. I've never seen this area so green. The Plateau Overlook was very green as well. With the abundance of flowers came the overgrowth (or the explosion) of cats-claw and thorns. We came to a slow crawl when we reached the Copper Camp creek. The trail was overgrown or sometime eaten up by the overgrowth. We've done this trail enough to know where the trail, but the cats-claw changed that. We used the GPS track as a rule of thumb, but it was easier to go off-trail to avoid the thorns. This time I saw evidence of some trail maintenance and fresh boot prints. So my suspicion of being the only person who hikes in the area was false. We had a small break at the actual Copper Camp. The climb up Cypress Ridge was warm and long. This time we found a horse trail with cairns leading around the second rock pile to the ridge. This made the hike a little easier. I saw my first snake of the season on the way up the ridge. We had lunch on the ridge. We had a hundred (or so it seemed) little gnats fling in faces ever since we left the copper camp creek. The gnats didn't leave until we hit 5500 feet. As we traveled along Lion mountain, we startled or woke up two little deer about 10 feet from us. By the time we realized what happened, they were gone. The Sheep creek trail also had cats-claw over growth in the lower section. It was not as bad as the Copper Camp lower section. At the Sheep Creek / Cornucopia intersection we came across a couple camping. We only had to use our headlamps for about a half hour this time. Maybe next year we can do this hike without the headlamps 
This is one of my favorite hikes. No matter how often I go out in this area, I'm impressed with the views. |
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Wildflowers Observation Substantial
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"Everywhere is walking distance...If you have the time"
-Stephen Wright |
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