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| Black Mountain Azimuth a Ruin and a Mine, AZ | |
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| | Black Mountain Azimuth a Ruin and a Mine, AZ | | | |
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Black Mountain Azimuth a Ruin and a Mine, AZ
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| Hiking | 6.10 Miles |
838 AEG |
| | Hiking | 6.10 Miles | 5 Hrs 9 Mns | | 2.27 mph |
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| 838 ft AEG | 2 Hrs 28 Mns Break | | |
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| no linked trail guides |
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| no partners | | Last March I hiked up Black Mountain, north of Oracle, to locate Black Mtn benchmark, and its two reference marks. Two disks were missing and RM #2 is either hidden by very dense vegetation, or it's missing also.
Anyway, due to my chosen track up the mountain, I didn't attempt to locate Black Mtn's azimuth mark, as it was far from my hiking track.
This hike was primarily done to locate Black Mtn Azimuth disk. I assumed that it would still exist, as it is far off in the foot hills to the northeast, and I can't imagine anyone leisurely hiking in that area. The area is too dense with cat's claw and other 'fun vegetation'.
In the vicinity of the azimuth location, Google Earth displayed signs of a ruin, and also a long forgotten, very overgrown dead-end road, leading to an old mine or prospect.
So, off I went, on a sort of three event treasure hunt.
I located a one-room ruin first. It was about 25 ft by 20 ft., and had the usual boulder walls. I found no artifacts at the ruin area.
Location information for the azimuth mark, from the 1947 Black Mtn BM datasheet, was a bit sketchy. The datasheet had location clues like, "X yds NE of a NW-SE Fence", "X Paces from another E-W Fence" and " X paces NE of the highest point of a knoll".
Well, the brush etc was dense enough to negate using those clues, so I hiked up my home-made GPS azimuth line, as well as I could, and finally located the disk.
The Black Mtn azimuth disk (set in 1947) looks brand new, as I expected, due to its remote placement. I would be surprised if anyone has even seen the disk since 1947.
After locating the azimuth disk, I dove back into the cat's claw again, and located the remains of that forgotten, and vague, mine road. I followed the road to the remaining artifacts left behind at the mine/prospect site.
I did this hike the day after eating too much turkey with my Marana, Az relatives. When I got back to Marana after the hike, they looked at my 'cat's claw', scratched up arms and just shook their heads. I think their idea of a hike is different than mine.  |
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Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost
J.R.R.TOLKIEN |
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