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| Hiking | 3.60 Miles |
960 AEG |
| | Hiking | 3.60 Miles | | | |
| 960 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Thought 3 hours would be plenty of time for this hike - as usual, I underestimated our capacity for getting lost. Wasn't totally our fault this time though - the "cairn" marking the turnoff onto the cave trail wasn't so much a cairn as a rockpile with a dead branch on top of it. We only realized this, though, after we'd overshot the turnoff, started down a few false leads (the Monument Canyon trail is marked with cairns once you get past the Broadway Cave turnoff) and hiked into the entrance to Monument Canyon, to the ruined chimney and foundation of an old miner's shack. By the time we backtracked and found the right trail it was almost sundown. We started the scramble up to the cave anyhow, but about halfway we realized the steep slope with its loose rocks and at-times indistinct trail would be too treacherous in the dark. We got so close and realized it wouldn't be safe for us to go the rest of the way! Incredibly frustrating, but we did get to watch a great Valley sunset from high up on the mountain. On the way back I tried to reconstruct the cairn so it looks more cairn-like. By the time we were halfway back it was full dark, and even with headlamps we soon lost the trail in the sameness of prickly pear and brittlebush. Not too big a deal, we just kept heading southwest until we hit the subdivision fence, then followed it to the trailhead.
FYI, the "Trail" sign for Monument Canyon where it forks off from Jacobs Crosscut has fallen off - only the JC marker pointing left remains. Take the right, now unmarked fork. |
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