| | -
-
-
| |  |
|
2 |
-
-
-
| |  |
|
1 |
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
|
| | |
|
| Hiking | 7.56 Miles |
2,133 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.56 Miles | 5 Hrs | | 1.51 mph |
| 2,133 ft AEG | | | | |
|
|
| |
| Linked |
|
none
[ show ]
| no linked trail guides |
| Partners |
|
none
[ show ]
| no partners | | In place of our Tuesday hike this week (it's Christmas eve, if you don't know - you still have 1 shopping day left), we hiked yesterday. My hiking partner suggested the Table Top (TT) Trail - she and her husband had hiked it about 4 years ago. I checked earlier trip reports but found that nothing had been filed since Jan of this year. So much for current information.
TT Trail goes up TT Mountain in the TT wilderness, all part of the Sonoran Desert National Monument. This latter area, encompassing about 500,000 acres, was made a NM by Pres. Clinton in Jan of 2001. The trail is accessed from Vekol Valley Road, a dirt/sand conveyance extending south from exit 144 on I-8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend. Vekol Valley, which Vekol Road follows, is a favorite path for smugglers and illegals entering the US from the US/Mexican border. The number of gun fights and murders in this area has been increasing as other routes into the US have been tightened. The smugglers and illegals use Table Top Mountain as a reference point for navigation as they try to get to I-8 where they might be met by their cohorts.
Call us naive, dumb or daring (we might be a combination of all 3), but we decided to take a shot at this hike.  Vekol road was very good into the ranch turn off that you pass, but from then on it hasn't had any recent work. Most of the washes it crosses were well eroded, making high clearance necessary if you want to make decent time on the 15 mile drive. All were dry, so 4W was not necessary.
We saw no one on the drive in and only one vehicle on the way out - they did't shoot at us and we didn't shoot at them (actually, we hike unarmed).
This is a challenging hike - the trail seems to be getting steeper as you go (that's because it really is). But you are rewarded with beautiful Sonoran desert vegetation, interesting rocks, and splendid vistas on top. |
| _____________________
| To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace. -- Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56 AD – 117 AD) |
| | |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Route Editor
Route Scout
