| |
|
| | |
|
| Hiking | 9.10 Miles |
2,721 AEG |
| | Hiking | 9.10 Miles | 6 Hrs 39 Mns | | 1.53 mph |
| 2,721 ft AEG | 42 Mns Break | | | |
|
|
| |
| Partners |
|
none
[ show ]
| no partners | | I don't think I've hiked this part of this trail since before my kids were born. It was time to go back. I asked Wally if he was interested and obviously he was. He also graciously agreed to do the driving to the Rogers Trough Th at my request. I needed a break from driving for one week, especially on this road.
Made our way up to the saddle by Iron Mountain and got some good views of to the west with the morning light and the shadows. On the other side of the saddle is where the burned area mostly is. This section of trail has always been kind of loose, I remember sliding off it the last time I hiked it, having the manzanita stop me from sliding further. Now the manzanita is mostly gone, which kind of makes for a better hike in some ways. More scenery and less to bust through. There was one loose section where there's a switchback into the heavy brush which wasn't touched by the fire. I had a little fall there and smacked my knee on a rock. From there it was a small climb to the ridgeline, then the descent into the creek.
The descent down the ridgeline was also through a decimated manzanita area. Can't say I miss that much. The views back at Iron Mountain gave us foreboding of what we had ahead of us for the hike out. Things got steeper the closer we got to the creek. Once we got to the creek, the "trail" heads to the left and follows the creek bed for a mile or so. I noticed later that at this point, if he had went to the right upstream a little bit, there is the Silver Spur Cabin that is shown on the maps. I don't know what this is, or if there is anything left of it. But it wasn't far upstream from where we were. Wish I had known that at the time.
The hike in the creek was crummy. Walking over river rock is not fun. But at least the catclaw made things painful at times to distract us from that. At this point I felt pretty fatigued, not really sure why. the Supes always make for rough hikes, but I just seemed overly tired at times.
We overshot where the trail actually left the creek so we made our way back to it and climbed a small hill. It was there that Wally noticed a severely eroded ruin. We poked through and found a few sherds. At this point we had gone 4.6 miles, and it was a long slog back through the creek bed again and back up the hill. From where we stopped, it looks like the trail stays high up out of the creek bed. Not sure if I've hiked this portion of the trail before. When I did this 16+ years ago from either end, I mostly remember the slog through the creek and across the river rock. At that time I followed my Delorme mapping to make my remedial GPS routes, as opposed to what we have available to us know on HAZ. I'll have to make a note to check that from the Miles TH end before things get to overgrown.
The hike back up the hill wasn't as bad as I was afraid it would be. We stopped and had lunch just before the big ascent, so i think that helped. Getting some rest and food gives you the energy you need to get it done. I took my sweatshirt off for the hike for the first time since before October. The breezes picked up the closer we got to the saddle, which helped cool us off and not use too much water.
On the way down from the saddle to the TH I saw a junction for another trail below Iron Mountain. Not sure where that went exactly, but i marked it on my RS.
Got done by 1:30 and made the bumpy ride down 172, pavement never felt so good. |
| _____________________
| | |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Route Editor
Route Scout
