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| Hiking | 6.07 Miles |
1,375 AEG |
| | Hiking | 6.07 Miles | 3 Hrs 42 Mns | | 1.84 mph |
| 1,375 ft AEG | 24 Mns Break | 27 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | My wife joined me for an early morning hike of the Pine Creek Loop and part of the Ballantine Trail.
We started off by going right (CCW) on the Pine Creek Loop. As mentioned in past triplogs, trail work had been done to create better paths around sections of trail with significant erosion. For the most part, these are good, but there's still one diversion which confuses me. The new section of trail peters out into desert. We backtracked and found what looked like a switchback which led back to the well worn trail. I'm guessing that others have found this confusing too and inadvertently created the trail which we followed that leads nowhere. (So... we contributed to the problem by following it.)
We noticed, too, some significant erosion on the Pine Creek Loop just after the intersection with the Ballantine Trail. I don't recall if this is new or not, but I don't remember it being much of a problem on past hikes in this area.
At perhaps 2.75 miles in (total), there's (still) a fallen saguaro across the Ballantine Trail. I passed it by stepping up onto a boulder on the south side of the trail and then stepping over the saguaro to another boulder on the other side of the fallen saguaro.
I saw two rattlesnakes on the Ballantine Trail as I was hiking back. It's possible that they were also there on the way out, but that I just didn't notice them. The first one struck and aggressive posture and rattled at me. The second one didn't notice me at all - it remained curled up the entire time.
The morning temperatures are becoming cooler. It was in the mid-seventies when we started at 6:20 and was in the high eighties when we got back. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
