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| Hiking | 2.40 Miles |
1,210 AEG |
| | Hiking | 2.40 Miles | 5 Hrs | | 0.56 mph |
| 1,210 ft AEG | 45 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | | Blake and I and two friends enjoyed this short, but fun, and somewhat strenuous hike while camping at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. We chose this place to camp and hike as it's only a 3-hour drive from Phoenix and it has good overnight temps in mid-February. We were very pleased with the campground (Twin Peaks) and the beauty of the area. Right from the trailhead you can see the main arch and there appears to be a small arch on top, but we'd have to get up there to be sure. The first half of the hike to the main arch was a well-worn path without much elevation gain (0.6 miles). The second half (another 0.6 miles) was where we gained the majority of the elevation. The second half was well-cairned (is that a word?) except that at the top there were cairns going off in different directions. You'll see from our route that we did a bit of wandering around before we found where to turn to reach the main arch. While wandering around we found a third arch (see photos 14 and 15). Finally, we dropped down a very loose trail to get to the main arch (probably no worse than certain areas on Picketpost). We had lunch while admiring the views from both sides of the arch. After leaving the main arch and carefully going back up the loose trail, I took a hard left to get a look at the smaller arch sitting above the main one. It is, in fact, a full arch. We came back down the same way we came up (although we turned our inReach off after lunch). We were the only ones on the trail that day after leaving the relatively flat part of the trail. |
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Wildflowers Observation Isolated
Indian paint brush |
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| Stephanie and Blake Barnard |
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