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| Hiking | 13.30 Miles |
630 AEG |
| | Hiking | 13.30 Miles | 5 Hrs 5 Mns | | 2.62 mph |
| 630 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | This was an ok hike, the trail in this section really isn't much. The best part of the hike was that I discovered two other better hikes in this area, but more on that later.
From the Anthem TH off of Desert Hills Road and 11th Ave. I headed east towards New River Road first. For the most part, the trail consists of sections of ATV roads that have been marked with Maricopa Trail markers (or just the posts). The last section parallels Linda Lane and goes behind some quirky houses and some double wides. At one point a rather large german shephard came out greet me. He wasn't too aggressive, but he seemed rather insistent on keeping up the barking and kept advancing as I kept hiking past. Eventually I heard a disembodied voice say "Git ovir heer". I was hoping that voice was directed towards the dog. It seemed as though it was as the dog soon thereafter stopped barking and backed off. I swear though, I could almost hear the faint sound of a banjo being played.
At New River Road, I discovered a new trailhead has been constructed called the Spear S Ranch Trailhead. This is great news because a better hike in this area seems to be Apache Peak, which is very accessible from this new TH. I would estimate a hike from New River Rd. to Apache Peak in the 7-8 mile range. Looking forward to doing that once the weather cools down as my next unplanned weekend to hike in AZ will be in June.
I made my way back to the Anthem TH and was soon tailed by a family of horseriders. They got closer very slowly, but never close enough for me to find it appropriate to yield the trail. They finally got off track on one of the other ATV roads and disappeared, giving me some peace and quiet again.
The trail to I-17 is very....meh. To the north is Anthem, and to the south is some new non-HOA housing. The trail basically following a strip of land the size of a highway meridian between the two developments. and there are no connected streets between them for some odd reason, which I found to be a big pain earlier in the day when I thought it would be a better idea to try to get to the TH through Anthem.
After taking the trail under I-17 over to Thompson Road, I noticed that it continues on from there, with official MT markers and all. This looks like another good hike to try sometime from Thompson Road, which at this point is a dirt road and has some parking available. I checked some maps and it looks like from I-17 out to Lake Pleasant and back should be a similar 12 mile or so distance. And west of I-17 it appears that the trail finally gets back to some more isolated desert away from housing developments, roads, and trailer parks. Looking forward to checking out these other two hikes later this year. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
