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| Hiking | 13.30 Miles |
2,340 AEG |
| | Hiking | 13.30 Miles | 6 Hrs 48 Mns | | 2.53 mph |
| 2,340 ft AEG | 1 Hour 32 Mns Break | | | |
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| Partners |
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[ show ]
| partners | | The Towel Creek Ruins have been on my radar screen for a while, and I decided to check them out today. It was a pretty day, and I was able to persuade Tracie, my favorite and intrepid hiking partner, to join me on the hike.
We made our way to a couple of ruins -- one small one and one larger one. The larger one was pretty decent, and we enjoyed checking it out. There was plenty of bat guano on the floor, but no bats. The second ruin wasn't all that great, but it gave us a nice place in the shade to hang out for a while and enjoy some nice views of the valley below and the mountain tops out in the distance.
While the ruins were decent and are worth taking a look at, this hike wouldn't make my top 10 list. The Towel Creek Trail #67 doesn't have the greatest tread in the world: most of the time you are hiking on baseball and softball sized ankle-busting rocks, so you have to watch your step. Most of the scenery is typical of a high desert: chaparral, juniper, prickly pear, mesquite, among other things. The trail was mostly easy to follow, especially the first 3 miles or so. There were a few places where the trail was a bit overgrown though.
The ruins are easily to see from the trail, and it is a pretty easy off-trail scramble to get to them. We were a bit premature in leaving the trail to get to the ruins: we wanted to check out some overhangs that we saw before we got to the ruins. Doing that meant that we did a bit more bushwhacking than we otherwise would have done.
To get to the TH, we went about 9 miles on Fossil Creek Rd, off of 260. The road looked well-graded, but it was VERY washboardy the whole way. You certainly don't need a 4WD or even a HCV, but you might want to drive a vehicle with a decent suspension/shocks. We parked at the TH parking area, which was on the left side of the road, across from Needle Rock. We then walked 0.3 miles along the road to get to the trail.
The ruins were neat, but this is probably a one-and-done hike for me: I didn't like the trail all that much, and the washboardy road wasn't all that great either. |
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Wildflowers Observation Substantial
There were LOTS of yellow wildflowers along the trail today |
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| Civilization is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there |
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