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| Hiking | 14.29 Miles |
1,737 AEG |
| | Hiking | 14.29 Miles | 8 Hrs 55 Mns | | 1.86 mph |
| 1,737 ft AEG | 1 Hour 13 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | I have trouble these days finding new interesting places to go particularly in the heat. I was thinking about going back to Hardscrabble Mesa (west of Pine) where I'd been many times and usually enjoyed, though the walks can be tough.
While trying to define an interesting new line to check out I remembered an old PM exchange I had with @Sredfield. He's the AZ Trail Boss and the exchange was about an ancient ruin near the AZ Trail - but in passing he mentioned coming across a nice petroglyph while they were designing the passage 25 re-route to Pine. This is near Hardscrabble Mesa but actually on Alder Ridge.
As I looked into the best way to get there I figured I could use the road approach used by the AZ Trail crew. This would leave me a 6-7mi round trip walk on the nice new trail section. This sounded perfect.
Unfortunately, 50 yds up the power line road I decided it was not compatible with my Subaru - way too rocky. This would add 4mi each way but I had no plan B. So I just started walking thinking I could turn around any time. It wasn't bad at all: road walking (even rocky) and the new trail were much nicer than the usual mesa walking up there. Off-trail would have been particularly bad today with the abundant growth hiding all the rocks. The growth obscured the new trail in quite a few places but following it was no problem (particularly with Toddak's gps track loaded).
I was feeling good and making good time as I got near the petroglyph destination: 7mi in 3hrs is pretty good for me but I was starting to tire out. The petroglyph and a couple neighbors were very nice and you'd have to be pretty lucky to stumble on that location.
The return was no fun for me at all. Probably I had been over-conserving the drinks I was carrying and I'm guessing dehydration slowed me down (something did!). But I made it out. Note to self: 14mi in the heat is more than twice as long as 7mi in the heat. |
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Route Editor
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