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| Hiking | 5.43 Miles |
900 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.43 Miles | 3 Hrs 42 Mns | | 1.47 mph |
| 900 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Today we hiked the Mesquite Trail in White Tank Mountains Regional Park. This trail reminded me a little bit of the Peralta Trail, in the beginning of the hike, in that you are climbing up a ravine that is strewn with granite boulders for you to traverse.
After about 3/4 a mile of this the trail turns to switch backs which are in fairly good shape. Upon reaching the saddle then you are rewarded with wonderful long views down into the valley and a very nice groomed trail from here on out. From reading a few past posts on this trail it appears that this grooming project has been going on for quite some time. It really is a marvelously groomed trail once you hit the switchbacks.
This trail is essentially 2.5 miles up and then, 2.5 miles back down. You can also make a nice loop from this trail but time prevented us from tacking on the additional 2 or so miles.
One of the things that I found striking was that there was the constant roar of fighter jets in the air from nearby Luke Air Force Base.
As we crossed the saddle and continued our primarily westerly trek, we approached a canyon with what looked like white granite and beautiful green pools of water down below the trail. The canyon was also very green from recent rains.
We also enjoyed the openness of this particular hike that allowed you to peer across the canyon and enjoy the large granite boulders present everywhere.
This is also the first time that I have seen granite the color of grave stone markers in my hiking. There was a LOT of this grayish granite with little sparklers dancing in the sun.
It doesn't appear that they are completely finished with the grooming of the Mesquite Trail. Back towards the end of the trail there was an orange fence where there was a drastic change in the quality of the trail. We decided, because of the time to make this our turning around point.
This was a very enjoyable trail and we will definitely be back to hike the "balloon loop" which according to my map makes for a 7.7 mile hike. |
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