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| | Four Peaks Wilderness Wandering, AZ | | | |
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Four Peaks Wilderness Wandering, AZ
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| Hiking | 10.70 Miles |
2,008 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.70 Miles | 6 Hrs 38 Mns | | 1.67 mph |
| 2,008 ft AEG | 13 Mns Break | 25 LBS Pack | | |
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[ show ]
| no partners | | Some time back while planning a hike toward Soldier Camp I noticed remnants of an old road on Route Manager satellite view and filed that tidbit away for another day. And that time was today.
I began by following Trail #84 from Cottonwood until veering off to the left where it appeared the old road had been. Much of it bore little resemblance to a road, forcing me to bushwhack along my mapped route a number of times. But there was enough of it, along with the odd, obviously old rock cairns to help out and I made it to the absolute end. And whaddya know? At the end was a long-abandoned mine, which cleared up the mystery as to the purpose of the road many decades in the past... it was an old 'mine' road.
But wait, I need to back up just a bit... some distance before the end of the road as I came to a small clearing I was pleasantly surprised with an encounter with a Gila Monster. It was just 63 degrees at the time so it was pretty slow-moving. I spent some time shooting video in hopes it would give a nice loud hiss, but it was not cooperating. Oh well, once it moved into a bush I continued along the old road.
After visiting the mine I continued farther east, not really following any particular route I wandered at will until reaching a nice group of boulders to stop for lunch. I would turn back after lunch.
On the return I followed a small creek until I reached where I had crossed it earlier, when I retraced my route until reaching Boulder Creek. With all the water flow (from Four Peaks snow melt?) I decided to follow in and along it back to the start. That worked for about 2 miles, which by that time I had done so much boulder hopping that it was only a matter of time before I misjudged one and had a bad spill. So I struck out for the next wash south, which was dry. From there it was a boring walk-in-the-wash back to Cottonwood.
Three videos:
1:45 Gila Monster
0:45 Three Mule Deer
4:45 Boulder Creek |
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