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| Hiking | 17.50 Miles |
4,000 AEG |
| | Hiking | 17.50 Miles | 9 Hrs 2 Mns | | 2.56 mph |
| 4,000 ft AEG | 2 Hrs 12 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | Six intrepid hikers decided to #OptOutside on Black Friday and hike up to the Skull Mesa ruins. The first 2 miles were very easy, and the next 3 miles were fairly "normal" for an Arizona hike on a trail in a national forest. The next 1.2 miles up to the top of Skull Mesa were a bit more strenuous, but not too bad. The hike from the top of the mesa to the ruins was totally off-trail through knee high grass with lots of prickly pear cactus along the way. Thankfully the gps track that I downloaded from HAZ took us right to the ruins. The fort ruins were very interesting and are worth going to imho. I did not see the pueblo ruins, although I did not really know what to look for. I also did not see any of the petroglyphs that are supposed to be there. There were some pottery shards scattered around though.
I made one deviation from the gps track: as we neared the ruins, rather than going up and over the second peak that you come to, I went around it on the west side. There was a faintly marked trail to follow, and it was much easier than going up and over this peak.
On a future hike, on the way back from the ruins I am going to explore the feasibility of going from the ruins over to Cave Creek Trail #4. There will be a descent involved, but it should shorten the route back by over 2 miles.
I have done this hike twice over the past month and saw wildlife both times: the first time I came across a half dozen or so javelina; the second time I saw a tarantula on Trail #247, and I came across a deer leg on top of the Mesa.
We made good time on this hike, with a moving avg. of 2.6 mph. We spent about 2 hours of 'downtime", mostly on top of the initial summit to Skull Mesa, and at the fort ruins.
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| Civilization is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there |
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