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| Hiking | 12.90 Miles |
224 AEG |
| | Hiking | 12.90 Miles | 4 Hrs 37 Mns | | 2.79 mph |
| 224 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Continued the saga of hiking the Maricopa Trail. Started from the Tres Rios area and hiked eastbound to where Ted and I left off on the MT from South Mountain last May. I planned to park at where GoogleMaps says the 91st Ave Trailhead is, but the dirt road to there is closed for now. That entire section of the MT from 91st Ave to the powerlines has been temporarily rerouted to the south bank of the Salt River until May, according the MT website. Not sure why that is. It took a little to time figure out what to do, but there is a main trailhead right on 91st Ave, so I parked there.
the reroute is along a dirt road on the south bank of the Salt River. It has a lot of gravel and river rock, so it's not too comfortable to walk on. and then there's quite a lot of trash left all around, making for riveting scenery. The reroute connects back to the main trail at the north end of the powerline. From there, it's a 6+ mile hike down to South Mountain. Fortunately, I only went to where we left off from last year, which was about 2 miles short of that.
There's a steady stream of water that parallels the trail and powerline, running northwest into the wetlands. When you start on the powerline, you have to cross at the only spot where a road goes over, but then you're on the wrong side because the MT is on the west side. At the next road I crossed the bridge there and got back on track. On the way back I got stuck and had to use a sluice gate as a makeshift shaky bridge. on the east side of the stream is a paved trail that looks like it circumnavigates a new subdivision. Near the subdivision is where the burrowing owls were. Saw quite a few of them and their burrows around.
The MT follows a series of dirt roads under the powerline all the way down to where is heads into South Mountain Park. The stream of water disappears after a couple miles, but the small canal carrying the water remains. Lots of farm fields growing a crop that was very green. The powerlines took away from the scenery, but there were good views of South Mountain, the Estrellas, and even faraway views of 4Peaks, Supes, central Phx preserve, White Tanks, etc.
Saw the least amount of people on this hike than any other I've done in the last 3 weeks. Two bikers coming the other way the entire time. Saw some walkers on concrete path by the subdivision, but they were on the other side of the stream valley. Very peaceful hike. |
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