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| Iron Flat Tank - Hutton Peak, AZ | |
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| | Iron Flat Tank - Hutton Peak, AZ | | | |
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Iron Flat Tank - Hutton Peak, AZ
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| Hiking | 9.60 Miles |
2,356 AEG |
| | Hiking | 9.60 Miles | 4 Hrs 30 Mns | | 2.22 mph |
| 2,356 ft AEG | 10 Mns Break | 15 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | Having forgotten Tracey would have the day off I had absolutely no plan for the day. Ok, so what are the priorities?
#1. MUST be on a trail... essentially it boils down to NO fox-tails!
#2. It's heating up so higher elevation is required
#3. Not too far from home (due to late start)
#4. Somewhere new/different/unique
Priorities now set, but still no plan stood above the rest. So we just set out driving east on US 60 with Oak Flat, Rawhide Canyon/Ridge, Top-of-the-World, Pinal Peak as possibilities.
As we passed Oak Flat, #1 & #4 were mutually exclusive so that's out.
Rawhide Canyon was up next but with a sign warning of heavy equipment on the primitive road, that's out.
Top-of-the-World... ok, not wanting another 50-60 minutes to Pinal, there's gotta be something around here that'll work.
Although we had followed Forest Road 320/old US 60/70 to the Pinto Creek Bridge on several occasions as well as significant exploring of the various mining sites in the area, (including the long hike to Bellevue) something got me to turn onto FR 320 at the last moment.
Still no concrete plan in mind, I just drove to the parking spot we had used on several previous occasions. Even as we 'geared up' for the hike, we still had two choices... continue on FR 320 (for the 4th time) or head south along old mining roads (for the 3rd time). Three is lower than four, so let's hit the mining road.
Yup, we remembered this route well... climbing on loose/rocky surfaces, descending, climbing, descending, climbing and so forth until reaching the old Forest Road 3, which used to connect Top-of-the-World to the Bellevue mining settlement.
At that point we had to decide... east all the way down to Bellevue and back again (nope!), west down to Top-of-the-World (not as far down but still a 'meh') or continue west a mile then south to Peak 5254 above Iron Canyon. Since the latter would be new, different AND unique, we finally hit on the plan for the day... 'bout time!
All this time, prepared only for a 5-7 mile hike, neither of us had been paying attention to how long the hike was becoming (probably now 9-10 miles), still we continued. As we closed in on our new goal we saw an open meadow with an old wire corral, and instead of continuing to 5254, we dropped down to the meadow. Upon noticing another large meadow and what we would find out later was Iron Flat Tank we decided to skip the peak and follow the by-now almost non-existent 'road' to the tank.
About .15 mile Iron Flat Tank this had just become the perfect hike for the day... at the tank we saw what appeared to be three white-tailed deer frolicking back-and-forth. Now the challenge became how to approach close enough for some decent photos and possibly a video of the action without scaring the deer away. Knowing it was very unlikely she would be able to get close enough for a photo from her phone, Tracey decided to sit on an outcrop and just watch the deer while I stalked them.
Thankfully there was a cross-wind so as long as I didn't make too much noise all I had to do was worry about being spotted by the deer as I closed in. It was pretty easy the first hundred yards because the surface was bare rock and I would be out-of-sight for the most part.
And now came the tough part... the next hundred yards I would be devoid of any cover, if any of the deer rose to the edge of the tank I would be in clear view. Barely a hundred feet into the open and a deer stopped, turned and stared directly at me. Oh, oh... but no, it didn't appear to see me so I just froze, for what turned out to be almost 5 full minutes.
Thankfully I had thought ahead and had turned my camera on at the outset of the stalk, so even though I was a bit too far for a stable video I figured what-the-heck and began filming. Due to the raised rim around the tank I could only see the upper part of any of the deer. So the moment the deer looked away, I headed for cover and in the process found part of the old mining road which allowed me to continue unseen the last hundred yards or so.
Unfortunately, with a slight change in the crosswind, the deer were aware of me and set off before I could reach a good viewpoint. With a few short sneeze/barks first one deer bounds by, then another, and another, and another... wait a minute, I thought there were only three. Oh well, they're gone now so I shut off the camera.
Rats! In all the commotion I figured I only got maybe 10 seconds of usable video. Then all-of-a-sudden I hear another huffing bark and here comes ANOTHER deer! Whoops, gotta wait for the camera to fire up, hit the video button and hope it will focus as I'm panning along with the deer until it's gone... but wait, one MORE deer? This one had set off in a different direction than the others so it took me a moment to pick upon it before it was too far away.
Having initially spotted only three deer frolicking, unbeknownst to us there had been three more. If only I had known that, and had known how deep the 'bowl' of the tank was (just wet mud) I would have sought a higher spot to film from.
Oh well, at least I caught a bit of the action and Tracey saved it in a mental-video.
Ok, it's starting to warm up and I don't have that much water left so it's time to hit-the-road back. Although warming, the breeze picked up, so other than the inevitable ups-and-downs on the return trip, it was pleasant enough.
Just one small drama... oh wait, make that two, both being snakes.
The first was gone so fast neither of us could identify it. The second was a large gopher snake spread across the road with a pretty much non-committal attitude, completely still as if posing for photos. As I turned away without any action, NOW it started to move so I only caught a few seconds of it heading for cover.
1:49 Video: White-Tailed Deer at Iron Flat Tank w/gopher snake cameo |
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