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| Hiking | 13.70 Miles |
3,700 AEG |
| | Hiking | 13.70 Miles | 7 Hrs 30 Mns | | 1.83 mph |
| 3,700 ft AEG | | | | |
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| Partners |
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[ show ]
| partners | | Wally and I started about 9am. As soon as we entered the park, the signs by the dirt road said "Park on Right Side Only". I saw all the cars parked along the road so I took the first space. After walking about a quarter mile up the road, we saw a sign that said "Trail Parking" by where the trail started. Oh well.
We made our way up the Aspen Springs Trail, to find that we could have continued on that road to an upper TH. I wanted to hike the entire Potato Patch loop per the "100 Classic Hikes in AZ" book, so this didn't matter much to me. In addition, I wanted to approximate Joe and Bruce's "super loop" track from the week before to add miles as a training exercise for my Keet Seel adventure next week. Once we got to the beginning of the loop, I decided to hike the loop clockwise, thereby getting Hualapai Peak, the highest point on this hike, out of the way.
The "spur" trail to Hualapai Peak starts out as a descending driveable road but soon turns into a narrow, overgrown and very steep trail. At the start of that trail we spotted a whitetail deer (see photo). Just below the peak we ran into Booneman and his AHOTE crew. Booneman's knee was bleeding, so it was officially an AHOTE hike (see Wally's shirt). The trail doesn't actually go to the peak, but just below. Younger and more adventurous version of me and Wally would have tried to bust thru the brush and near vertical rock faces to the top, but we're smarter now. And we were on mile 5 of 13. No need to kill ourselves yet.
We continued on the Potato Patch loop to the Hayden Peak trails and went to the Dinosaur Rock overlook, just under Hayden Peak. On our way down I decided against taking the trail to Mt. Tipton since I was running a little low on water and we still had to hike Aspen peak before finishing.
We took the trail up to just below Aspen Peak. What is up with the trails not going to the peaks in this park  ?
On our way back we spotted some elk just below the campground at the top of the Aspen Springs Trail. wally was ahead of me, so he saw 4 cows and 2 calves. I spotted only 2 of each. The elk appeared to be very used to people and some regular park visitors told us that was the case. At one point I had in front me 2 calves on one side of the trail and the mama on the other side. They weren't bears, but I wasn't about to push the envelope on elk motherly instincts.
Afterwards it was to the hotel, dinner and sleepy time for the AZ Hot Springs hike. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
