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| Hiking | 9.85 Miles |
2,000 AEG |
| | Hiking | 9.85 Miles | 5 Hrs 45 Mns | | 1.71 mph |
| 2,000 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | This hike had a few glitches, but still turned out to be very rewarding and interesting. We started off with the issue that Al was having problems making it up the beginning steep section and had to bail rather early. Fortunately, all seems well and Al seemed to be in very good spirits when we returned.
The plan we had was to take the eastern-most leg of the Four Peaks Trail from the Mills Ridge TH up to Buckhorn Mt. The trail took us to Granite Spring, and from there, it began to circumference Buckhorn Mt. about 1000' below the summit. This section of the trail is not on any maps that I've seen or that we had with us. It's a definite trail, moderately difficult to follow in spots, but a constructed trail. It was supposed to be 3.7 miles to the top of Buckhorn Mt. and once we got to 5 miles and the trail was getting more and more overgrown with no sign that it would ascend to the summit, we decided to bail and look for the section we must have missed going to the Buckhorn Mt. summit. On our way back, I checked my GPS to see where our path diverged from the route planned. There were some cairns near where we had diverged, but no trail was visible. I'm wondering if the fire up there in 1996 may have wiped it out and now its totally overgrown.
There were a lot of remaining questions. Al had a book of the AZT that showed us that we were actually on the AZT circumferencing Buckhorn Mt. But even his book didn't have it mapped properly. After I downloaded the track on my computer, I could see that we were probably about a mile away from a junction with the Chillicut trail, maybe. Only one map I've seen so far show that trail going up to Buckhorn Mt. to junction with the Four Peaks trail, while two maps (including the most recent Beartooth) show it dead ending north of Buckhorn, and north of where the trail we were on would have met it. The AZT and Four Peaks Trail are supposed to be the same trail. The AZT book and other maps seem to contradict each other on this. Has the AZT been rerouted after the fire? Are the Four Peaks and AZT two different trails now? Does the trail from Granite Spring to Buckhorn Mt. even exist now? How far does the Chillicut Trail go? Where are the trail junctions by Buckhorn Mt, and how many are there exactly? Does anyone have any answers on any of this? There seems to be a significant lack of information on these trails and what info there is seems to be questionable. I'm looking forward to figuring out these trails and posting the tracks and info on HAZ as I progress.
The Four Peaks Trail goes thru two separate sets of Indian ruins, which are mostly similar to Circlestone, with piles of rocks and what appear to be the remains of some rock walls. The second set of ruins we walked thru contained a cairn that someone had set several pottery shards on. Once I noticed that, I began to look on the ground and it turned out that pottery shards were everywhere, right there on the trail. I suppose the fact that this trail is so remote and rather difficult in terms of steepness, it doesn't seem to be very well traveled, allowing for the ruins to remain mostly untouched.
The views of the backside of Four Peaks as we got closer to it were astounding. The east side seems to be steeper and the bare rock looks intimidating. After viewing it on my 3-D topo and seeing the curvature of the peaks, it looks like the east side may have the inner basin of a volcano. The section of the trail we took past Granite Spring gave one in particular amazing view of Four Peaks, Camelback Peak and Roosevelt Lake.
Early on in the hike, we spotted a small snake that was constricting a lizard that was almost as big as the snake. My camera has been on the fritz and didn't want to work at that time, so I wasn't able to get a picture. Fortunately, Al did. Unfortunately, I haven't seen him post it on HAZ so I can steal it. |
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Wildflowers Observation Substantial
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