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| Lynx Labyrinth and Bear Down Summit, AZ | |
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| | Lynx Labyrinth and Bear Down Summit, AZ | | | |
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Lynx Labyrinth and Bear Down Summit, AZ
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| Hiking | 12.57 Miles |
2,522 AEG |
| | Hiking | 12.57 Miles | 7 Hrs 24 Mns | | 2.03 mph |
| 2,522 ft AEG | 1 Hour 13 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | It was a smoky, hazy drive out of the valley this morning because of a mulch fire in Mesa that's been burning for the past few days, so it was nice getting out into clearer air. I hadn't driven on I-17 in almost a year, so I got my first look at the widening project on the way to Prescott. We started near Salida Gulch Trailhead...not quite in the actual parking lot--between the GPS, some confusing dead end signs, and an unusual pair of parallel roads on opposite sides of Lynx Creek in the residential area, we ended up parking in a pullout along the road...close enough.
Salida Gulch Trail #95 was flat and easy early on, crossing the creek multiple times. A mile in, we passed the petroglyphs, which were better than expected--a lot of rock art concentrated in one area, with various figures of people and animals, some circles of life, etc...and no obvious graffiti, which was a bonus.
Past the petroglyphs, we took a short, unofficial but easy to follow trail that led to Salida Connection Trail #9263 and followed that for less than a mile to Prospectors Trail. The guides for these trails are accurate: wide, easy to follow, and rocky multi-use trails. There's a lot of short, rocky downhill sketches mixed into the general upward climb. It's a complex network of trails out there...in some areas, it felt like we were passing intersections every mile or less. Bull Tank and Quail Tank both had some murky water, and we made our way around the south side of Bear Down Mountain.
TboneKathy was ready for a break from the rocky ups and downs, so she waited near the trail while I made the short bushwhack up to the peak. It was a lot rockier up there than it looked from below. Great 360° views from the top, but I felt like I was back in the Mazatzals with the swarms of ladybugs, which seem to thrive on these ~7,000' peaks. It was tough to tell which rock outcropping was the true summit, but the guide says the westernmost is slightly higher. I searched for the summit register on both and came up empty, despite the detailed photo from @Peter_Medal [ photo ] in 2016...not sure if it's gone or if I just missed it among the many boulders up there.
[ youtube video ]
On the way back, we followed Salida Trail into new territory with the same wide, rocky trail and a mix of ups and downs. We stopped for lunch in the shade near Salida Tank, and thunder started as we got moving again. Thunderheads had started gathering early in the morning and got darker as the day went on. We could see rain streaks under the clouds, and when we reconnected with Salida Gulch Trail, we decided to shorten the hike and skip the originally-planned extension over to Lynx Lake on John's Tank Trail.
When we finished, we'd completed a kind of odd figure-eight/lasso loop route with a hook on the end. The clouds had stayed away, so we decided to tack on a short hike to see the Lynx Creek Ruins and then check out the lake. The petroglyphs and peak were highlights on this hike, and it was pleasant overall, but there isn't a lot of variety in the scenery or terrain--the early stretch along the creek on Salida Gulch was flat and easy, and just about everything else was very rocky, which isn't bad, but does get a little annoying after a while. |
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