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| Hiking | 3.66 Miles |
469 AEG |
| | Hiking | 3.66 Miles | 3 Hrs 12 Mns | | 1.25 mph |
| 469 ft AEG | 16 Mns Break | 5 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | We were looking to check another item off the AZ 20-20 list, and saw that this hike was in season and right near Phoenix, so despite not having high hopes we drove up to check it out before the summer got too hot. Wow this was a great surprise! A nice easy stroll down badger springs wash led to a cool clear river right outside of town--can't believe I didn't know about this since I grew up in anthem just 20 minutes away. We followed the river south for a while, alternating between walking on soft sand to hopping over big grey granite boulders, totally smoothed by past high flows. Picking different routes and finding creative ways to cross the river without getting our toes wet was a fun game, and there was plenty of shade under trees and big rocks. Found a lot of great places to swim, and almost as many good places to camp, including one or two that had been used before (rings of rocks where someone had a fire). I'd love to come back with overnight gear to give us an opportunity to go really far, apparently we need to travel at least 6 miles down the river to find the deepest part, and that would be slow going crawling over all these rocks. I wonder if someone could follow the canyon down and come out a side canyon at the sunset point rest stop? that might be a nice almost-loop, or a really easy place to leave a car.
Lots of cars in the trailhead parking lot (6-10) but we only ever saw three groups right were the trail meets the river, and two more sunbathing groups slightly further down. Very little trash except for cigarette butts and a couple surprisingly good looking tires half-buried under huge 15 ft tall boulders (how did those get there?). Except we actually lost (and couldn't find later) a little paper bag we were using to pick up trash...
Neat to see pinecones washed down from up north, and pools full of big tadpoles, little fish, and weird wiggly things that might be mosquito larvae(?) but we missed all the petroglyphs! Can't wait to go back. |
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Wildflowers Observation Moderate
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