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| Hiking | 12.00 Miles |
570 AEG |
| | Hiking | 12.00 Miles | 5 Hrs 30 Mns | | 2.18 mph |
| 570 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | A little late in posting this hike, since I did it 3 weeks ago, but better late than never I guess. To start with, the main page of this hike says it is 5 miles each way. It is actually about 6 miles each way. It is 4.7 miles from the Marshal Lake trail head to the bottom of Walnut Canyon, then another mile to either Fisher Point, or about 1.2 miles to the caves, which is where we went.
The hike from Marshal lake down is very easy. You follow the Arizona Trail and it's a dirt/rock trail all the way. One little strange thing we found though, for some reason the trail is rougher to walk on in some places then just walking off the trail into the grass. There are places with an uneven walking area or lots of rocks, just walk right next to the trail in the grass for a second and you'll get right around.
We started our hike around Noon and were disappointed we saw absolutely no wildlife at all the whole way. The wildlife is why we decided to take this hike, hoping to get some pictures of elk or deer. No animals for the full 6 miles down, although we did see some people coming from some camp grounds at the 4.7 mile mark. Some very nice views here and there, but nothing really special.
We arrived at the Fisher Point area, which is a short climb to an elevated area, which I assume just give you a good view of the canyon. Rather than do that, we continued to the right and found a few caves, including one that was a natural air conditioned cave. Much cooler and breezy on the inside than on the outside. A nice place to rest before the trek back.
The walk back was a little tougher. Uphill for most of the 6 miles. The one good thing was by the time we got to about 5 miles it was getting to be sundown and the wildlife was coming out. I guess the best time is either very early in the morning or at sundown. We saw 2 squirrels, 3 deer and about 6 or 6 elk. Our dog thinks squirrels are our cats and deer and elk are other dogs to play with, so she scared everything away before we could get any pictures. She stays home on the next hike with wildlife picture opportunities.
The whole hike was pretty uneventful compared to the other hikes we've taken. It was a challenge to do the longest hike we've done, but other than the few animal sightings, a nice meadow and a couple of nice picture moments, it was just an average hike for us. |
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