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| Hiking | 7.41 Miles |
2,753 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.41 Miles | 6 Hrs 41 Mns | | 1.30 mph |
| 2,753 ft AEG | 1 Hour Break | | | |
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| no partners | | After a few recent trips to the Horseshoe Dam area I got curious about the high wall of mountains to the west. When I noticed an obscure ruin on a (very) low res map to the east of Kentuck Mountain I figured I should go look around up there.
Kentuck Mtn. is a prominent point north of Carefree and readily accessible from the Seven Springs Rd. The views opened up as I bushwacked up the west ridge - pretty nice walking -mainly grassland. I didn't find a register on top.
Then came the interesting part. I figured I would just drop off the backside to the drainage below and look around for the ruin. After that, not knowing what the "facts on the ground" would be, I had plotted 6 different routes, two looping back, and four bailing down to Horseshoe Dam Rd.
Turned out like this: the descent from the top looked unpleasant (steep and brushy) so I did more of a zigzag taking advantage of some high quality game trails. The creek itself was in a pretty deep gash. By the time I got to my best guess ruin location I realized this was not it, and it wasn't even a good place to look around - too much topography. I continued down the creek for less than 1/2mi and decided more ruin searching and a loop back to the car was not in the cards.
So I took plan "D" and headed east toward Horseshoe Dam Rd. This involved some more steep bushwacking over a couple intermediate ridges but eventually I ended up on a nice open ridge looking down at the Horseshoe side. I was lucky enough to come across an unexpected medium-sized ruin on the ridge. I was surprised to see that most of the pottery pieces had been organized into piles - unexpected in an obscure and hard-to-get-to ruin. A bit further down I passed another single room ruin.
I had picked this exit route to take me out at St. Clair Mountain and its nice ruin. Too bad it took me so long to get there: I skipped it in order to increase my chance of bumming a ride back to my car. One minute and one car got me a ride to Carefree and the Seven Springs Rd. Unfortunately I was too unsavory in that part of town and had to walk 5mi before a nice young couple squeezed me into the cab of their old truck and took me the last mile. Almost missed happy hour. |
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