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| South Mountain Wander-Again, AZ | | -
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| | South Mountain Wander-Again, AZ | | | |
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South Mountain Wander-Again, AZ
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| Hiking | 6.80 Miles |
1,540 AEG |
| | Hiking | 6.80 Miles | 4 Hrs 9 Mns | | 2.21 mph |
| 1,540 ft AEG | 1 Hour 4 Mns Break | | | |
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[ show ]
| no partners | | My January only hike partner wanted to hike in South Mountain, so I basically cloned my last venture in the park, leaving out most of the off trail stuff. (He doesn’t like off trail).
We started at the Mormon TH and made our way to Guadalupe Ridge, then the National Trail.
I did take him off trail to see the benchmark stone cross I had located a couple months ago.
This time, I moved some of the large rocks in the center of the 50 foot by 50 foot rock cross, in the hopes of locating an actual BM disk. Well, there was no disk, but definite evidence that a disk was once in place. I found a circular impression of a disk and alot of cement in a boulder, that was covered by other rocks. Vandals probably absconded with the disk.
My research tells me that surveyors, especially the US Army Map Survey surveyors, used these rock crosses (they call them ‘Panels’) to assist future surveyors in locating the actual BM disk. It appears they made these 50 foot by 50 foot ‘rock panels’ out of nearby, available rock, mostly during survey work in the 1930s and 1940s. The panels acted similar to reference mark disks.
I now know that alot of flat desert areas, west of Phoenix, have these ‘rock panels’, with the BM disk in the center. Many are visible on Google Earth, with some panels totally in view, and some almost out of sight now, with 70 and 80 years of desert sand movement.
I’ll have to go west and hike out on those flat, sandy, desert areas and locate some of the panels, that hopefully still have the survey disk in place.
AHHH ! - Another adventure for me. |
| _____________________
Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost
J.R.R.TOLKIEN |
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