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| Hiking | 4.50 Miles |
1,100 AEG |
| | Hiking | 4.50 Miles | | | |
| 1,100 ft AEG | | | | |
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What do you do when you have no meetings on a Thursday afternoon and nothing until Friday afternoon? Go for a super quick overnight backpack. I recently picked up an Outback Wilderness and wanted to see how it fared on something more than just the smooth forest roads. I saw a post saying 172 to Woodbury wasn't bad right now, so figured I'd do a quick hike out to the Randolph/Fraser intersection. I made it up to the trailhead in good time and was impressed how comfortable the car was even on the crappy parts; my previous trail vehicle was the Ascent with 20 inch wheels and small tires, so it just shook you all day.
I started my hike and it as just a pleasant stroll through the creek bed really. I generally stayed off the trail when it left the creek bed because it's just catclaw heaven right now. Water flow started small about a half mile east of Whetstone and the further in I went, the more there was (but never too much, just...more and constant).
Made it to the intersection and found a couple of trees to toss my hammock up for the night and settled in with a book until bedtime. Right as I'm dozing off, what do I hear? *snort snort huff huff*! I turned on my headlamp and bam, 6 or 7 javelina about 10 feet away from me, just wandering around. These guys didn't care or react to my light at all nor me talking to them even: they gave absolutely zero poos. Eventually they wandered off but I was able to get a cool video that my daughter is really going to love. I've seen them plenty of times around my neighborhood but this was actually the first time I'd seen them in the wild.
This morning, I hiked out mostly the same way I came in but instead of taking Woodbury trail from Coffee Flat, I just hiked up the road from the ranch. That was a bit more of a slog than I anticipated and I had forgotten my hat (along with my trekking poles, too) at home, so it was a bit miserable with the exposure but oh well; shaved a little bit of distance off the hike at least.
Overall, pleasant hike and it's good to know that my vehicle can get to the TH to open up more/different loop options. |
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Whetstone Spring |
Dripping |
Dripping |
| | | Not certain about the exact spring location, but water was coming up from the ground in the creekbed here and continued to run the length of the canyon to the Red Tank/Coffee intersection. Dripping and green at the source, but much more flow and tastier as you walk down the canyon | | | |
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