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| Hiking | 7.80 Miles |
2,395 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.80 Miles | 4 Hrs 30 Mns | | 1.73 mph |
| 2,395 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Completed 12/16/06.
Parked at Peralta and hoofed it past the Don's camp and on Lost Goldmine Trailhead to get to the gate for the West Boulder Canyon Route. West Boulder Canyon is one steep trail. I was sucking wind pretty hard at the first saddle. I thought I was all the way up. Wrong. Continued climbing and broke for lunch at about an hour and a half at the actual West Boulder canyon saddle where the trails all converge. Studied the area for future Ridgeline and/or West Boulder Canyon Hikes. This put doubt into my mind as to whether I would be able to complete the Ridgeline if I were to attempt it because the trail to that point was much more demanding than I had expected and it's not even a fifth of the Ridgeline hike.
I thought I was done with the difficult part, and in one sense, you are done with most of the elevation gain. I saw a well-cairned trail that headed north across a drainage and over a hill. It swings well west of the yellow striped hoodoos shown in Fritzki's writeup. At this point, I knew it wasn't the trail per my map, which was supposed to head northeast. In fact, the cairned trail leads you north, west, and north some more. I don't know who cairned that trail, but they seem to have a poor sense of direction. The trail almost hugs the West Boulder Canyon on the east side until it suddenly attempts to turn to the east. However it goes north much to far and suddenly turns back south for awhile trying to correct the mistake. At one point it comes close enough where you can glimpse Weaver's Needle, but you're well north of Fremont Saddle. The cairned trail loops back west and then south and west some more. It loops on itself, which was of no help at all. Fed up with following a trail cairned by someone with the direction finding skills of a wombat, I left the cairns and headed southeast until I could find a route through the hoodoos and arrived back on Fremont Saddle 3.75 hours, having travelled much farther than expected and well behind schedule.
I don't know what was more enjoyable about this hike, the semiautomatic weapons fire that serenaded me throughout the hike with the idiots blowing off M80s at times, or the ridiculous trail that was cairned out. Sorry, but I can't rate this one very high.
I had slightly more than 3 hours of sunlight, and since I'd done the Cave Trail before, I decided I'd take a shot down Upper Barks Canyon to complete the trip (Dacite Ultra Loop?).
I'll post in the Upper Barks for my attempt on that, but I failed to complete it and eventually took Peralta Back, so I'll add the 45 minutes from that (Fremont Saddle to parking lot) onto the 3.75 hours (Peralta Parking lot to get to Fremont Saddle) for a loop of 4.5 hours.
DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT follow the cairns past West Boulder Canyon Saddle if you do this one. |
| _____________________
http://hikearizona.com/garmin_maps.php
Hike Arizona it is full of sharp, pointy, ankle-twisting, HAZmaster crushing ROCKS!!
Hike Arizona it is full of sharp, pointy, shin-stabbing, skin-shredding plants!
Hike Arizona it is full of striking, biting, stabbing, venomous wildlife! |
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