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| Hiking | 12.23 Miles |
3,103 AEG |
| | Hiking | 12.23 Miles | 6 Hrs 14 Mns | | 2.15 mph |
| 3,103 ft AEG | 32 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | It’s a good thing I decided to stay local this weekend… my plan to return to the beautiful Sierritas and pull off a sweet trifecta ended in just a single summit bag. Normally I’d be very disappointed in myself, [given that my reason for turning back was due to sheer lethargy / exhaustion], but I’m still too tired to give a crap.
I launched from the same TH that is the take off point for Keystone Peak, and stayed on the dirt road leading to Keystone for just under 1.4 miles before taking the left-most jeep road where a few jeep roads intersect, a little ways past UN 5310 and Shloh Well. I felt crummy enough that bushwhacking did not even cross my mind for nearly 3 miles into my adventure, [about 8/10ths of a mile after topping out on UN 5816, when I opted to head off-trail and continue down a more direct ridge toward Horse Pasture Hill vs. staying on the jeep road].
I’m not sure whether things have sprouted up a bit or whether the vegetation was slightly different / brushier on the off-trail portions of this hike compared to my other two trips to the Sierritas, but I had to use a little more caution thanks to some never-ending patches of shin daggers. In combination with a few areas of slightly loose footing, it definitely made the off-trail portions a slower go compared to the bushwhacking I did last week up in Flagstaff & Prescott; but relative to the nastiness that off-trailing in Southern Arizona can dish out, I would still consider this very easy going. While there weren’t always wide margins for error between some of the shin dagger patches, it wasn’t like you had to step on top of them to avoid getting nailed. There were also some ocotillo and prickly pear patches, but the margin for error between these cacti was pretty wide.
Feeling as crummy as I did on this adventure, I could not have asked for a more pleasant ascent up Horse Pasture Hill. From the direction I approached, there were routes everywhere, nothing was super brushy, the footing was not super loose, and despite looking like it was going to be an exhausting climb [from when I viewed this peak during my last trip to the Sierritas when I’d bagged the nearby Ritchey Peak], the ridge I had selected to ascend Horse Pasture gradually and painlessly took me to the summit in no time.
Like the other Sierrita peaks I’ve bagged, the 360 degree views from Horse Pasture did not disappoint; and I definitely liked the views of the Green Valley mines the best from atop Horse Pasture. There is a large cairn in the area of the highpoint, [which is very obvious on this summit], and I found a register that was almost identical to the one I found on the nearby Ritchey Peak. Like the one on Ritchey Peak, the register on Horse Pasture does not have a notebook but it does contain the bare-bones basics: a container [=a small glass bottle about the size of a Snapple bottle], a very small writing implement [=a pencil], and something to write on [=a single small envelope]. And, [surprise, surprise!] Mark Nichols was also the one who placed the register on Horse Pasture Hill, which he bagged on 9/14/96 [the same day he bagged & placed the register on Ritchey]. Unlike on Ritchey, [where I was the first one to sign after Mark], there were several other names in the register on Horse Pasture. However, interestingly enough, all of the 10+ others to sign had hiked Horse Pasture as one big group [with the Green Valley Hiking Club] on the same date [12/24/98]. Unless there was another register that I missed, I’m guessing this peak is clearly not a SAHC Peak given that I’m the first one to sign in since December of 1998!
After enjoying the peak, I did an ‘up and over’, hitting up UN 5199 along the E / SE ridgeline of Horse Pasture on the way down, and then finishing my descent by heading downward off the ridge toward a jeep road that contours the peak. Still feeling like I had the life sucked out of me, it was at this point that I aborted my trifecta and continued contouring Horse Pasture, first on the jeep road, and then freestyling. I eventually looped back around and crossed over to point from where I began my ascent up Horse Pasture earlier in the adventure.
Next, [thinking I was in for an easy 3-4 miles of dirt road back to my vehicle], I let my mind drift a little too much; and when I suddenly thought, ‘the Green Valley mines look A LOT closer than the last time I was on this road…,’ I decided a topo check was in order and immediately saw that I had missed the turn for the dirt road I’d intended to take. No biggie, the one I was on would eventually wrap around and connect with the one I had planned to take… but just minutes later as the road curved toward a large mine dump, there was a small keep out / no trespassing sign. From what I’ve been told by locals in the area, you do NOT want to trespass on mine property; and as remote as it may look, there is video surveillance in many areas. Luckily, [although still not feeling my oats], I’d come to enough by this point to thoroughly enjoy an unanticipated 2.64 miles of bushwhacking back to my vehicle. |
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| God save the Prom Queen, cuz [reality check!] AEG's King...! |
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