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| Hiking | 13.68 Miles |
3,057 AEG |
| | Hiking | 13.68 Miles | 7 Hrs 49 Mns | | 2.04 mph |
| 3,057 ft AEG | 1 Hour 6 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | We headed north to higher elevations again to avoid the near-record 114° in the Valley. Traffic on I-17 slowed things down a little at times, but it could've been a lot worse with the holiday weekend. We parked in a large pullout along 89A near Mescal Tank (labeled "Mescal Trail #547 Parking" on Google Maps)--though it would've been possible to drive down the forest road and park there--and got started around 8:40AM.
We started clockwise on North Mingus Trail #105 and took the short detour off the trail to see the three unmarked graves at the small cemetery...it'd be interesting to know the history behind those. The real elevation gain starts around two and a half miles in, and we continued on #105 toward the top, with great views of Sedona and the San Francisco Peaks in the distance. As we approached the final switchbacks, we saw two parasailers.
On top, we paused briefly at the N. Mingus benchmark (labeled 7721, though the topo maps show 7739) and continued south, where we saw the first hikers of the day, then a bunch of people hanging out around the overlooks and the hang glider launch...but no hang gliders. From there, we followed the forest roads over to View Point Trail #106 and started descending around the SE side of the mountain. We took advantage of one of the few shady spots along #106 and paused for a snack break on the way down. The trail is a little overgrown in places, but the brush isn't sharp or thorny.
We closed the upper loop on 105A and backtracked along 105 to an unmarked road/unofficial trail that gained a little elevation and eventually connected with Bug Hollow Trail #548. Road noise picked up again along 89A, and we ate a late lunch with two miles to go, then it was smooth sailing from there--flat/downhill and mostly shady as we completed the lower loop on Mescal Trail #547.
Coincidentally, this was the second consecutive weekend we ended up following a recent Eagle/trekkin_gecko/LindaAnn/rayhuston route...both nice higher-elevation options, so thank you all for posting those  . This one had a little overlap with a Mingus route we hiked two years ago [ triplog ] but mostly consisted of new trails for us. We had good weather today--warm but not terribly hot--and other than the area near the hang glider launch, we only saw one other hiker all day. And traffic wasn't bad returning on I-17, so that was a nice bonus. |
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Red Seep Spring |
Dry |
Dry |
| |  Dry spring box; didn't look closely at the spring itself. | | | |
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