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| Hiking | 10.00 Miles |
3,000 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.00 Miles | 7 Hrs 10 Mns | | 1.40 mph |
| 3,000 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Of the 15000+ triplogs recorded here I can't find any direct reference to this place. That's a little suprising considering this is one of the prominent high points in the near-to-Phoenix Four Peaks Wilderness.
I had wanted to look around here for some time and some Google searching had brought the expectation that the trails weren't very good - victims of past fires and subsequent regrowth - but I decided to check it out.
The Mills Ridge Trailhead is accessed from the Roosevelt Lake area. It's 5 miles up Forest Road 429 which comes off Rte 188, 1.4m North of its intersection with the Apache Trail (Rte 88). With road construction along the way (particularly through Miami) it took me about 3 hours to reach the trailhead from Phoenix. FR 429 is a fairly spectacular drive along a ridgecrest and doable by standard cars as long as it's dry.
From the trailhead take trail #130 (apparently this is the southern end of the Four Peaks Trail) which is also part of the Arizona Trail. Most internet accounts I found about this area were written by AZ trail through hikers or organizers. To my surprise there was another vehicle at the trailhead - bowhunters - I actually did see a couple mule deer along the trail.
The sandy trail climbs consistently until it crests a ridge and drops into the Buckhorn Creek drainage. A nice surprise here was that the trail passed through some Salado ruins. There must be 8-10 foundations and potsherds were everywhere. On the way back I noticed some ruins on the first hilltop above the trail.
The trail switchbacks out of the drainage but eventually it disappears. I had pre-loaded waypoints into my GPS and they turned out to be useful: there was a transition period before the route became "stay on top of the ridge" where these clues helped - not in staying on the incipient trail but in not wandering off in the wrong direction. Often when I did find the old trail I noticed an offset from the waypoints - the offset exists in both the Topo and Garmin maps. It's moderately steep and slow going but with long pants arterial bleeding can be avoided.
Once the top of Buckhorn is firmly in sight its a matter of staying on the shallow ridgecrest and working upwards. The summit isn't really marked. There are a few cairns dispersed along the trail which continues beyond the top - I'm not sure which is highest and didn't notice a register. The most distinguishing marker is an old barbed-wire fence, first visible near the summit. There are trees and brush and I had to wander around to get a clear view of this "back side" of the Four Peaks. It took me 4 hours and the GPS said 5.3 miles to reach the top.
Planning the trip I had hoped to make a little triangle by descending the northeast ridge to Camelback Mountain (this one has to get much less traffic than the other one), and then Camelback's southeast ridge back to the trail, avoiding the drop into Buckhorn Creek. I still think this is a good plan - if you have to bushwack you might as well go someplace new, right? - but I was marginal for remaining daylight and water and so I just headed back. The descent was a little better, mainly because I had my choice of two ways through the thicket - what I could see and what I had done on the way up.
All-in-all I'm glad I went but I can't recommend this as a pleasant hike. |
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Route Editor
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