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| Hiking | 5.20 Miles |
1,357 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.20 Miles | 5 Hrs 42 Mns | | 0.91 mph |
| 1,357 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | This was the most spectacular hike of our 7 night camping trip to Redmond Mesa due to the amazing views and the ancient fortress on top of this peak. We chose to start the hike at the Dupont Cabin rather than the starting point on the official trail and drive in from the NE side of the peak on FR236 from FR609 rather than up FR236 from the west side. F236 between FR609 and Dupont Cabin has some rough stretches requiring 4WD and high clearance plus some minor AZ striping as you maneuver around some clearance issues. GH insisted on me not driving up the last very steep section of FR236 from the Dupont Cabin to the official hike starting point. Something about a bad experience with a broken shock mount on @sk44 's vehicle during a previous journey up that section of road. This added 1 mile and 540 ft additional AEG but it's better than being stranded with a stuck or busted vehicle out in the boonies.
The hike follows an old abandoned road (not shown on HAZ maps) from the Dupont cabin up and across the hillside on the NE side of Greenback Peak. Then it's a "short" off-trail hike (almost a scramble) straight up the hillside to connect with the official track which we then followed up the slope to the east end of the top of Greenback. This 11+ year old track by @PrestonSands did a good job of leading us around the many obstacles including thickets of manzanita and massive rock outcroppings. Once on top of the east end of the peak we worked our way along the top towards the west end through and around lots of manzanita. A small set of ruin walls was encountered not far from the east end, then we came to a much larger fortress type ruin near the west end. This ruin has a massive 3.5 ft thick outer defensive wall on the NE side with a row of rooms along the inside face of the wall. The cliff on the SW side provides protection from intruders on that side. The inhabitants had amazing long distance views in all directions. The defensive wall was built with many large rocks that would have required 2 or more people to carry to the wall location and lift into place.
For the route back we had decided to make a lollipop loop by following a track that was visible on Google Earth along the top of a ridge and then dropping down the end of the ridge to connect with the old road we had followed on the way in. Following the old track was easy using the planning track plotted on Google Earth but the descent down the end of the ridge required some route finding through thickets of brush. I didn't think this route was any more difficult than the incoming route we had taken and I always prefer doing loop hikes to out-and-back when ever possible. However GH thought the return route was more difficult and maybe took a little longer due to the route finding but he was just anxious to get back to camp while it was still warm enough for his daily afternoon bath.  |
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