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| Hiking | 9.25 Miles |
2,572 AEG |
| | Hiking | 9.25 Miles | 9 Hrs 33 Mns | | 1.47 mph |
| 2,572 ft AEG | 3 Hrs 16 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | We were looking for a medium-length hike, and neither of us had been to the summit of Bluff Spring Mountain, so this was a good option for today. The lot at Peralta had plenty of spaces open when we started a little after 7:30AM, and Bluff Springs Trail didn't have much traffic on the way in. Some horseback riders started just behind us on Dutchman, and most of the crowds were headed toward Fremont Saddle, as always.
The just-past-full moon looked great over Dacite Cliffs as we started up Cardiac Hill, and there was quite a bit of water flowing in Lower Barks Canyon. We stayed on Bluff Springs Trail for ~2.75 miles and then took a short break before starting the off-trail climb up the south side of the mountain. We cut through some thick catclaw crossing the dry stream bed at the bottom, but after that the brush wasn't bad on the way up. The scenery just kept getting better as we climbed, with Weaver's Needle, Superstition Peak, and Miner's Needle all in view, and the hazy sky created a nice effect with the layers of mountains on the horizon.
A deer ran down the slope as we approached the first wall of rock. I climbed up in one spot and then came back down to help TboneKathy find a more palatable approach and ended up accidentally slamming my kneecap into a boulder once I was back down, but luckily it didn't swell much and didn't amount to much more than a painful scrape. We got up the wall and the route leveled off on top of Bluff Spring Mountain, and we headed north to topo point 4041 overlooking Bluff Spring Mountain Canyon, with views of Battleship and neighboring peaks to the north.
From there, we had a straightforward hike up a grassy slope to the summit. The ammo box in the cairn had two registers, one placed in 2000, the other a few years ago. The peak gets plenty of visitors...the registers were packed with familiar HAZ names, many of them repeat visitors, and the ammo box also had two memorial photos of HAZ member @johnr1, who apparently passed away in 2014.
[ youtube video ]
We signed the register, enjoyed the views, ate a snack, and took some pictures before we started down the west side toward Terrapin Trail. There weren't any serious obstacles or overly pesky brush going down that way, just a lot of rocky slopes covered in thick grass that made it tough to see footing in some areas. We followed a drainage down the last few tenths of a mile to the trail, and it had a steady trickle of water and some pools, probably from a spring in that area.
The pace picked up one we were on Terrapin, and I took a quick detour to get a closer look at a natural arch on the east side of the trail. I'm not sure if it has a name, but it's a nice one and larger than in looks from a distance. We reconnected with Bluff Springs Trail and saw a lot more hiker/backpacker traffic on the way out. We'd considered taking Lower Barks Canyon to change up the route a little on the way out but decided against it, not knowing how much the water might slow things down.
As we came down Cardiac Hill, a series of seven parasailers appeared one after the other from behind Dacite Cliffs, and I got some nice shots of them drifting down with the sun setting in the background. On the drive out, three javelinas ran across Peralta Road, which was a nice way to wrap up the day. It wasn't a particularly high-mileage hike, but it was nice to visit a new summit and enjoy great scenery and weather. |
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Barks Canyon |
Medium flow |
Medium flow |
| | | Large pools and the soothing sounds of flowing water along Bluff Springs Trail | | | |
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