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| Hiking | 26.00 Miles |
5,915 AEG |
| | Hiking | 26.00 Miles | 11 Hrs 30 Mns | | 2.33 mph |
| 5,915 ft AEG | 20 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | Back in October 2010, I found the original Bull Spring trail. From my maps, it looked like it was a shortcut to get to the Bull Spring Cabin.
I didn't have time to prove it out until this hike.
The morning was cool, almost chilly. We started up the Bull Spring trail and hit the intersection of the old jeep road. There's a big cairn here and some overgrow that obscures the road. About 5 minutes down the road there a spur trail that takes off to the left. The spur has a lot of overgrowth and the ground was soft.
We stayed on the main road. After about 20 minutes, the road dumps into a big drainage. Both my GPS's agreed with this, so we went up the drainage.
Then the GPS's showed that the road/trail turned out of the drainage. This drainage was about 5 feet deep and there was no way out. I went with what I saw and continued up the drainage. We could see the top of a ridgeline coming up. I also saw a flat area below it. We pushed on up. It seemed like the drainage went straight.
At least there were not a lot of plants and the only 2~3 feet drops/waterfalls to deal with. We reached the flat area and to my surprise it was an old jeep road!
It looks like it might have been that spur trail we saw near the start of the old Bull Spring trail!
This Jeep road has not been used in a long time. Parts of it have been taken back by nature. We followed this 'road' until it ended at where two major drainages meet.
The drainage to left looked mild and long. The drainage to right was short but steep and I could see the entire drainage to the ridgeline.
Also my GPS showed that the Brush trail was only a third away IF we took the short/steep drainage. So that's what we did. The climb was even steeper and had loose dirt on it.
It took some time and energy, but we made it to the sweet ridgeline and looked at some nice rolling landscape to the Brush trail.
Two questions:
Was this a shortcut? Yes
Was it worth it? No, this way cost us more time and energy.
At least I know where that road goes to.
Soon we were at the Bull Spring cabin aka "L7 Hilton". I took a short lunch and then headed down the Bull spring trail towards the Wet Bottom Creek.
I came back to the cabin and then we headed back. We got back to forest road with time to spare, so we headed down to the East Verde River to take a break. Then we headed back to the Jeep.
It was a great day for hiking. The sun was warm, but the winds were cold.
Even though the shortcut didn't pan out as expected, it we still made it to the cabin and found some Native American ruins. |
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"Everywhere is walking distance...If you have the time"
-Stephen Wright |
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