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| Hiking | 5.57 Miles |
659 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.57 Miles | 5 Hrs 21 Mns | | 1.20 mph |
| 659 ft AEG | 42 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | When the heat dissipates the lower Gila River beckons. I'm running out of ideas there but decided an unpromising but not previously visited section of black river bank would be worth a look.
There are always 4 choices for travel along the edge when looking for petroglyphs. 1. along the top edge on the flat mesa/plain, 2. Below the edge along the cliff bottom or the middle of the slope 3. At the bottom of the slope, or 4. On the river bottom flat, away from the cliff, but also outside the thicket which grows at the slope bottom (must be wetter there). I had pretty much done #1 here before, and #2&3 were difficult/unappealing on this section so most of today consisted of hugging the passable vegetation edge, glassing the rocky slope where it looked promising, and then ploughing through the barrier and walking up the side if it seemed worthwhile.
This method did lead to a few petroglyphs finds and one nice panel. I was thinking about how much further I wanted to go when the "lay of the land" pushed me up a dirt bank onto a flat dirt platform. I don't know how these dirt flats are formed, but between the ancient river flow and side canyon run-off, there they are. This one had lots of pottery. I also found a sea shell and a (likely ancient) path from the dirt flat to the basalt pebble flat above. This must have been an ancient habitation site.
Anyway, turned out to be a good day. An unpromising area that was worth the visit. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
