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| Hiking | 12.12 Miles |
1,286 AEG |
| | Hiking | 12.12 Miles | 6 Hrs 3 Mns | | 2.17 mph |
| 1,286 ft AEG | 28 Mns Break | 10 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | As a Christmas/Anniversary gift, my oldest daughter and her husband offered to go with me and my "Trail Angel Extraordinaire" on a couple of hikes. I chose AZT#7 Las Cienegas and AZT#8, Rincon Valley. This is the story of Day Two. Again, my daughter drew the "short straw", and had to hike the entire day with me.
I decided to start this hike at the X9 Ranch Road crossing, and hike south to the Gabe Zimmerman trailhead.
Boots on the trail at about 8:40am. The first few miles were nice, with a gradual climb. There was scattered snow on the ground in numerous spots, from the previous night's storm.  I can say I hiked in the snow!
At the Pistol Hill road crossing, it was a bit confusing. There's a big AT sign across the cattle guard, so we hiked to it, read the sign, then looked around for the trail. It was nowhere to be found. WHAT!??? We finally figured out that it was back across the cattle guard, and off to the southeast. (ATA? You might want to rethink that location.)
A very nice trail. Well maintained, and easy to follow.
We kept gradually climbing up and up, then over a pass, and down to the La Sevilla Picnic Area, where we met my wife and son-in-law. We took a short break in one of the ramadas, then we all hiked to where the trail crosses the road into the picnic area. There, my daughter and I continued hiking, and my wife and son-in-law walked back to the car. They drove to the Gabe Zimmerman trailhead, and started hiking to meet us.
We met a group of Scouts eating lunch on the trail near the La Posta Quemada Ranch. They were training for a 80-100 mile hike at their national Philmont jamboree next summer. They said they started at the Sahuarita Road crossing that morning, hiking north for 10 miles, and after lunch, were hiking back. One leader said he wished the trail had mile markers every one or five miles. I agreed with him, but said others like a more rustic, away-from-it-all hike. I said the ATA has to balance the wishes of all hikers. I told him about HikeArizona.com, and encouraged him to check it out, and use it for planning his hikes. I told him about Route Scout, and how it can tell him how far he's hiked. I asked about the stream crossing in Davidson wash, and they said there were some rocks you could easily cross the stream on.
We continued on, hiking up and up, eventually crossing the saddle, and started back down. We met a group of six bikers riding up, and they said they had seen my wife and son-in-law hiking to meet us. We warned them about the scouts.
Eventually, the scouts passed us, going back to Sahuarita Road. We asked them to tell my wife and son-in-law that we were coming. And, again, a couple of the bikers passed us, going back down the trail.
We reached the train underpass, with the overhead rock guard. From there we could see, across the canyon, my wife and son-in-law in a parking area waiting for us. By shouting back and forth, we figured out they were going to walk up the road, back to the trailhead to meet us.
At the road crossing with the flashing lights (I let my daughter push the button!), we continued up, then down into Davidson Canyon Wash.
In the canyon, I purposefully didn't use either my Garmin GPS, or Route Scout. I wanted to see if I could follow the route through the canyon, simply by following AZT signs, rock cairns or carsonites. We saw a single AZT sticker on one of the trestle supports. We found the "rock crossing" mentioned by the scouts, but there was nothing to say which way to go. Since the rock crossing was at the mouth of a side canyon, we hiked up it. After a couple hundred yards, we saw two rock cairns on the left. We then saw the trail going up the right hand side of the canyon. It looked familiar, and I remembered pictures from a trail maintenance event when they fixed that. From there it was up and up, and up to the Gabe Zimmerman Trailhead, arriving at 2:46.
Another great day on the AZT!
And to my wife, Trail Angel Extraordinaire that you are, it's been a wonderful 40 years. I love you. |
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Davidson Canyon |
Light flow |
Light flow |
| | | Small enough that we could hop across on a few rocks. | | _____________________
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