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| Hiking | 7.20 Miles |
1,680 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.20 Miles | 4 Hrs 11 Mns | | 1.72 mph |
| 1,680 ft AEG | | 10 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | We decided to see if the Massacre falls were flowing after the little rainstorm we had last night. We wanted to avoid crowds, so decided to go via the Praying Hands loop, and from the tip of the loop, jump onto the Massacre falls route. We were going to come back via the praying hands loop, but missed our turn and ended up coming back on the Massacre falls route. This makes for a nice 7.2 mile hike with 1,680' elevation gain
There had been a bit of snow overnight on the Superstitions, so that was quite nice. The trail to the praying hands was pretty good, did get off-route for a little bit near the praying hands, I think the GPS trail as a little off, should have kept to the main route rather than trying to follow GPS at that point. It was not a big deal just put us a little higher on the mountain for about 15 minutes before we got back down on the main route. Trail after the praying hands shows on the TOPO map I have for the GPS as "Massacre Falls Loop". A bit more of a thin trail, but not to hard to follow, and had pretty many cairns to show the way. Eventually leading to the Massacre falls GPS route downloaded on the Hike AZ website.
The falls were a bit of a disappointment, just a trickle, but the hike overall was great with opportunity to see snow on Superstitions. I like this approach, it was a bit more scenic than the standard Massacre Grounds hike, and is ideally placed for morning photography.
We were surprised that there wasn't actually much going on as far as the wildflowers are concerned, I expected more after seeing the blooms on the Bronco trail (South).
We did see a number of critters including:
-Cottontail rabbit
-Gila Woodpecker
-Chipping Sparrows
-Western Meadowlark
-Quails
-Cactus Wren
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Wildflowers Observation Isolated
Brittlebush (few in bloom) |
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