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| Hiking | 7.60 Miles |
1,365 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.60 Miles | 3 Hrs 28 Mns | | 2.25 mph |
| 1,365 ft AEG | 5 Mns Break | 20 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | With only a half-day of hiking to work with and the Jeep out of commission for a week or so we wanted to stick with something close that we could reach with Tracey's Fit and hopefully with a little elevation.
Hmmh... lets' see, go North or East? Well it's not a Tuesday or Thursday so no traffic hold-ups for the blasting on US 60 near Oak Flat, so let's go out that way. Besides... it may not be too long before much of Oak Flat is off-limits.
When we arrived at the Oak Flat Campground we found a half-dozen empty tents and tables with literature(wet from the heavy overnight rain) supporting their cause. But with not a soul around I guess the "Save Oak Flat" Apaches don't camp out during the week?
On to the hike... we hadn't gone a hundred yards before Tracey's yelling "Oh, gross!" when she spotted a big fat green grub (caterpillar?) being attacked by ants. She took a few photos and we continued on.
Our plan was to hike a lasso loop going out on old 4x4 trails and returning on mining roads. As Resolution Copper ramps up the mining the old 4x4 trails will be modified and designated single-track for off-road motorcycle use only with 4x4's & ATV's prohibited.
Although we began at Oak FLAT, the roads we followed were anything but flat so we got a reasonable amount if elevation over the course of the hike. We were glad we weren't driving the roads as many sections have already been reduced to rock-crawling terrain. By the amount of rubber, paint and scrapes on the rocks/boulders it appears to do a bang-up job of tearing up vehicles.
No thanks... my Cherokee gets torn up enough without resorting to rock-crawling!
On the return trip we passed by two drilling rigs in action. I don't know how much pipe had already been used but on the first rig there was about a half-mile of pipe in a vertical stack waiting to be used. The second rig was down to about a quarter-mile of pipe left.
The air was clear after the heavy overnight rain so we were treated to great views. Temps were 75-80 but of course the humidity was a tad high, but we enjoyed strolling along the mix of dark green vegetation with huge boulders mixed in. |
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