| |
|
| | |
|
| Hiking | 4.00 Miles |
803 AEG |
| | Hiking | 4.00 Miles | 3 Hrs 26 Mns | | 2.26 mph |
| 803 ft AEG | 1 Hour 40 Mns Break | | | |
|
|
| |
| Linked |
|
none
[ show ]
| no linked trail guides |
| Partners |
|
none
[ show ]
| no partners | | This hike was solely to find the Buford Azimuth Mark.
The hiking was the easy part. It was the planning and research that was the challenge. I didn’t want to drive & hike the day away, looking for a ‘needle-in-a-haystack’, and come away empty handed. The planning paid off as I found the little disk in the first place I looked. Lucky me. 
Eleven days ago, I hiked east to Kentuck Mountain, to find Buford Triangulation Station, and 3 other disks. I actually found 2 disks and 2 ‘locations’ where the other 2 disks were placed before vandals absconded with them.
Surveyors placed Buford Azimuth Mark off the mountain to the southeast, and the easiest way to search for it was to hike west from Horseshoe Dam Road, and that’s what I did.
Azimuth Marks are a challenge to find. (For me anyway).
A surveyors’s datasheet will have an extremely accurate true course to the azimuth mark from the benchmark, down to the exact degree, minute and second. Now that’s accuracy in the true course!
However, distance is another thing. Surveyors (back-in-the-day), gave only an estimate as to the ‘distance’ from the benchmark to the azimuth mark. They also gave a description of it’s location (ie … on a ridge, in a boulder, near a tree etc). Often times, their ‘visual’ educated guess of the distance was way off.
So, for a hiker, the trick is to plot a very accurate true course and hike up and down the terrain on that course line.
Buford Azimuth Mark was estimated, by the surveyors, to be 3/4 of a mile away from the Buford Benchmark. I found it at 1.2 miles away. The data sheet said it was in a boulder, within a clump of boulders. The closer I hiked to the true course line, the more I saw many ‘clumps-of-boulders’. 
I lucked out and found the azimuth mark in the first ‘clump’ I searched.
The little disk is in great shape for being placed in the boulder in 1946. This is probably because you must climb up a 6 foot boulder to even see it. Out of sight - Out of mind, for vandals.
The actual hike was through gradual rolling desert with many washes running perpendicular, and with mostly sparse vegetation. I still managed to do some blood-letting, losing battles with ‘thorny things’. The effects from fire is evident throughout the area.
So, since this azimuth mark was found rather quickly, I had time to drive down the road and hike up a mountain and find another triangulation station, two reference marks and another elusive azimuth mark.
Gee - I think I’ll do a triplog for that hike too. |
| _____________________
Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost
J.R.R.TOLKIEN |
| | |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Route Editor
Route Scout
