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| Hiking | 6.74 Miles |
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| | Hiking | 6.74 Miles | 3 Hrs 30 Mns | | 2.07 mph |
| 15 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | Hiked this with a group of 10. Conditions were looking monsoon-ish and we weren't sure if that meant we'd have really cool clouds to see, or we would get soaked, but fortunately it was the former. We only got slightly damp toward the end of our hike.
We started out just past 9:30am from the old trailhead (3/4 mile beyond the paved Woodchute Trailhead). No one else had yet arrived that day, nor had registered on at the trail register. It had obviously rained fairly heavily the day before as the mud/puddles/and rivulets eroded into the parking are and trail demonstrated.
It was in the low-to-mid 80's for the hike and only partly sunny, which was quite nice in the exposed areas leading up to the top of Woodchute Mountain. For the most part the trail was hard-packed enough that the still-damp areas were not too muddy to walk in. Woodchute Tank was still only muddy though; it had not been enough to fill with water. The top of Woodchute Mountain had the muddiest sections of trail, but the worst spots could be avoided on the grass directly adjacent to the trail.
Our destination was the northeast side of the mountain, overlooking the Verde Valley (not the full trail to where it severely drops off the top of Woodchute Mountain). We arrived there after about 1.5 hours and had a 15 minute break looking around and photographing the awesome views and monsoon clouds over Sedona and the San Francisco peaks. Near the edge of the rim, we found a very quiet but alert Arizona Black Rattlesnake staring us down. Never rattled, though. We stayed far enough away and just took pictures.
About half the way back we passed several large groups, or one really big spread out group (totaling 30-40 persons). Not sure, but they were all male and either of high school or college age. They seemed well behaved but still we were glad to have started out quite a lot earlier than they  .
Around this same time, we got some light rain from a nearby thunderstorm. We were a bit concerned about lightning but it did not seem too active, fortunately. The trail never got too wet to walk on, and we were only slightly damp by the time we got back to our cars around 1:10 pm. I put up a photo set as well; enjoy!
Lunch at the Aslyum at the Jerome Grand Hotel was great! |
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