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| Hiking | 9.97 Miles |
2,325 AEG |
| | Hiking | 9.97 Miles | 5 Hrs 53 Mns | | 1.94 mph |
| 2,325 ft AEG | 45 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | Way across town a phone rings off the wall
If you know he ain't home why do you keep callin'
You're gonna drive yourself crazy and you know that it's true
It's making you wild and blue
With apologies to John Anderson, this hike was to the summit of Maple Peak (elevation of 8,294 feet and prominence of 2,374 feet), in the wild and wooley Blue Range Primitive Area of eastern Arizona. Maple Peak is in Greenlee County and is about 3 miles from the Arizona-New Mexico border.
The Blue Range Primitive Area is a remote area containing some of the most pristine countryside left in Arizona. Black bear and Mexican grey wolves are common in the area, and hikers are rarely seen.
I did not have much beta for this hike, but the triplog and GPX track that @azhiker456 posted was quite helpful.
The drive to the Charlie Moore TH (at a crumple gate on the AZ-NM state line) was on a well-graded road that any SUV can easily drive. However, I would recommend a high clearance 4WD vehicle drive through the crumple gate on FR 712.
I drove about 1/2 mile past the gate and decided to park at a convenient pullout. The road had some rough and rocky sections, and I did not know the condition of the road had I continued. As it turned out, the road got better and I could easily have driven another 3/4 mile or so. The road walk was easy and was a good warm-up, so I did not mind the road hiking.
We went 1.8 miles on the road and then left the road onto the trail. The trail was mostly easy to follow, but we lost it 2-3 times but were able to pick it back up with the help of the GPS track. We followed the trail almost all the way to the summit, but we had to do some fairly easy bushwhacking for a short distance to get to the summit.
Views were great at the summit so we hung out there for a bit. The weather was super which made the summit stop that much more enjoyable. We returned to the TH the same way that we came up.
We saw a coyote run across the road ahead of us in the first part of the hike, but that was it for wildlife. I saw bear scat on the trail in a number of places though.
Synopsis
I thought that this was a great hike -- it was much more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Both the drive to the TH and the hike were easier than expected. If I lived closer, I would do this hike a few times a year I think. |
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| May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. -- Edward Abbey |
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