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| Peachville Mountain - Superior Quad, AZ | |
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| | Peachville Mountain - Superior Quad, AZ | | | |
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Peachville Mountain - Superior Quad, AZ
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| Hiking | 5.00 Miles |
2,405 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.00 Miles | 3 Hrs 25 Mns | | 1.54 mph |
| 2,405 ft AEG | 10 Mns Break | 15 LBS Pack | | |
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| no linked trail guides |
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| no partners | | The area immediately north of Superior had pretty much been a black-hole to me for years, never giving any thought of just what was there. But seeing Peachville Mountain from three different viewpoints it got my attention. So I added it to my to-do-soon list.
But soon came quicker than expected. Only two days later I decided on the spur-of-the-moment to take advantage of the mild weather and give it a shot. Since I hadn't yet made a plan I spent a quick session with Route Manager to figure out a few route options including the drive in, since I had never been there before.
With the last-minute planning and the drive out I was a bit late in getting started, but with the high winds the temp was mid-to-upper 70's for most of the hike, reaching mid-to-upper 80's near the end.
I followed the Forest Road 229 until it turned off toward the old Silver King Mine site, which is posted No Trespassing within a quarter-mile. Anyway, I stayed left and continued in the wash following an old mining road. I wasn't able to drive quite as far as I hoped based on the satellite images, but no big deal.
As rough as what was left of the road was, I decided not to follow that mapped route headed up the first slope on what seemed the shortest route to the summit, but as usual, every time I saw a new 'summit' once I arrived there I would see another farther up. Already there was more up-and-down as I crossed every high-point instead of traversing around along the slopes.
Being what amounted to another short climb, once I reached the summit I decided to continue north as far as I could go along the Peachville Mountain ridge, with plans to making it a wide clockwise loop.
But first I had to pay a visit to the mining area on the northeastern slope. The first mine I came to was vertical, with VERY loose rock around it so I didn't get too close. I threw a rock into it and it bounced a few times so I figured the first part was maybe 10-12 feet before it angled down-slope, who knows how far. I stuck my camera out and zoomed it to take a shot but did not get much of the opening.
Ok, now down the slope to the horizontal adit, where it appeared there had been way more mining activity, albeit long ago. I took a bunch of photos of the various bits of debris and machinery before taking a look into the adit. The adit itself was now too small to crawl into due to the rock-fall, cave-in and/or possibly purposely filled-in. I wasn't about to do any digging so it was time to move on.
The ridge line seemed to go on forever, up-down, up-down, but at least by sticking to the ridge the saddles weren't very far down between high-points. I took plenty of photos (too many) along the way, partly to map out possible bail-out routes if I came to a sheer drop before or at the end of the ridge.
Finally at the end of the ridge I wound my way down to a drainage where I looped back. At one point I was deep in Manzanita, but due to spotting an old mining/pack trail while on the ridge, I persevered to connect with it. Once I located it, the going was much better, and in fact much of it was quite pleasant. Only one arc I traversed on a southern-facing slope had cat's-claw sometimes blocking the way and other times the dirt was so loose I had to dig my hiking poles in and place my feet against them until solid ground again.
From the last saddle the old trail seems to have been more of a wagon-trail, wider but that just allowed more growth of the more intrusive vegetation.
Well over a hundred photos due to taking many for future route planning so I'll limit it to only 60 photos.
Peachville Mountain summit panorama video is here:
[ youtube video ]
A pan of my Peachville Mountain ridge loop video is here:
[ youtube video ] |
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