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| Hiking | 9.30 Miles |
1,542 AEG |
| | Hiking | 9.30 Miles | 6 Hrs 2 Mns | | 2.63 mph |
| 1,542 ft AEG | 2 Hrs 30 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | Loy Butte had been on my radar screen for a while, so I decided to hike up the summit and look for some Indian ruins along the way.
I began the hike at the Loy Canyon TH on FR525, just before you get to the Honanki Ruins. I followed Loy Canyon Trail #5 for about a mile, and then went off trail to some neat ruins that I had been to a few times. I climbed up a chute next to the ruins and then went west and picked up a use trail that went to another set of ruins, which weren't nearly as good as the first ruins. The second ruins were at the bottom of a cliff, and I went south along the cliff for a ways until I found an easy way up. Then I followed some cairns over to a 3rd set of ruins, which was the foundation of some sort of building. This building was very near an overlook that looked down on Hancock Ranch. From these ruins you could look to the west and see the summit of Loy Butte. With the good visual of the summit it easy to pick a way up. It got a bit steep toward the top, ascending 450' in about 1/3 mile. There was a bit of class 3 climbing, but nothing very difficult.
The summit is about 5,700', and there are no trees up there and there is nothing around the summit that is higher, so there are some nice 360 degree views. There weren't many entries in the summit log book, so Loy Butte seems to be climbed infrequently. GPS coordinates for the summit are: N34.94325 W111.93148
I then retraced my steps back to Loy Canyon Trail #5. I like the Loy Canyon Trail, so I decided to add a bit of distance on the hike by hiking out the trail for a ways before turning back to the TH. I imagine that the hike from the TH to Loy Butte and back would only be around 5 miles RT, with 1,200-1,300 feet of elevation gain. |
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Wildflowers Observation Moderate
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| Civilization is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there |
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