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| Hiking | 12.56 Miles |
2,287 AEG |
| | Hiking | 12.56 Miles | 8 Hrs 42 Mns | | 1.98 mph |
| 2,287 ft AEG | 2 Hrs 22 Mns Break | | | |
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[ show ]
| partners | | We arrived at Tortilla TH a little after 7AM, and a vehicle with a HAZ decal pulled up right after us. When the driver got out, I recognized hikerdw from pictures on HAZ, so I got out and introduced myself, and we talked for a minute before he and his son headed out for their hike.
We planned to hike the Tortilla-Fish Mesa loop counterclockwise, with some added detours to a few other points of interest nearby. It was in the low/mid-40s when we started up FR 213, which had quite a few puddles and some mud from the recent rain. Our first detour was a stop to get a closer look at a possible dwelling wall I noticed on a hike to Music Mountain two years ago [ photo ] .
It was easy getting over there, and I found three small walls in a short alcove, plus a few shallow grinding holes. It must've been used as a granary or storage area, because the ceilings were very low. It was interesting to see that the natives used a big rock slab to form major sections of at least one of the walls and then added smaller rocks and mortar to fill it out--I haven't seen those construction "shortcuts" at many sites.
[ youtube video ]
The next stop was another ruins site up on a cliff wall that required a little more effort to reach but wasn't bad aside from some brush and catclaw. Once I located it, I left all my stuff with TBoneKathy and worked my way over there, though I wished I'd brought the clippers to deal with the catclaw. This site was a larger walled-off cave, with one wall in decent shape and another deteriorated down to the point that it looked more like a column of rock. Up above the cave, there were a few more small walls built on a narrow ledge, probably granaries or storage structures.
[ youtube video ]
There were a few vehicles and tents set up when we reached JF Trailhead, and we continued on to the gravesites of George Miller and then Ernest Martin. I dropped down into the drainage below and briefly looked for the Miller Tunnel Number One Spring but didn't see it, so I headed back up and we backtracked on JF Trail to get back on the route to Fish Mesa. We had to do some light scrambling to get up to the high point at the 3785 benchmark and took a lunch break there. As others have mentioned, the elevation on the benchmark seems too high based on the GPS reading.
[ youtube video ]
[ youtube video ]
The summit cairn was dismantled and scattered around. I'd read there's no longer a register up there, so I brought a jar and placed a new one and rebuilt the cairn. The top of Four Peaks was in the clouds, and the views overlooking Fish Creek Canyon were fantastic. It was easy hiking along the ridgeline, but we encountered more catclaw and a little rougher terrain dropping down into a drainage and coming up the other side before reconnecting with FR 213.
We had some extra time, so we went back to the first ruins site so TboneKathy could get a closer look since she didn't see it up close in the morning. We finally saw two other hikers on the road as we finished off the hike, and there were eight other vehicles at Tortilla TH when we finished, with more people setting up to watch the sunset along SR 88 on the drive out. It was a good day--we had comfortable weather, nice clouds, and great scenery throughout. It was fun to do some exploring and visit two ruins sites and the grave markers we hadn't seen before, and it was nice meeting @hikerdw in the morning  . |
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