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| Hiking | 2.40 Miles |
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| | Hiking | 2.40 Miles | 3 Hrs 20 Mns | | 0.72 mph |
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| no partners | | Note: I posted all stats under a triplog for Quartz peak.
From the top of Quartz peak, we looked to the East and saw what we believed to be Butterfly peak. There was a West and East peak, we believed, and the ridgeline looked incredibly rocky and time consuming. We talked it over and decided we would walk off trail in that direction to get a better look at the peaks. After walking about 1/4 mile we were surprised at how fast our progress was and then realized we probably had time to summit and make it back to the main Quartz trail before it got dark. It was already 3 pm by this time. We spend a lot of time getting photos on the summit and chatting. Dave and Haagen decided to start their descent while Brian and I decided to get a closer look at Butterfly peak. As we came closer to Butterfly West, it looked like a rounded dome with steep cliffs all around. Good thing we didn't have to climb this one! From the side of Butterfly West, looking at Butterfly East, we both felt like we could climb it. We kept hiking around the rocky ridge, staying roughly 50 vertical feet below it. At times we found some good animal trails heading around and other times we didn't find anything. On the way to Butterfly East, we hiked on the South side of Butterfly West which ended up being full of a lot of brush and was probably the messiest part of the hike. When we got close to Butterfly East, we noticed that it didn't look too difficult to climb. We climbed up from the West ridgeline over and around numerous boulders and made it to the top. Up there we didn't find a registry so I left a new jar, starting a new registry. We figured that not too many hikers make it up to this peak. We got some quick photos from the top, didn't stay long, and then started to head back as we were a little concerned about the time.
It took us roughly 2 hours to get from Quartz peak to the top of Butterfly peak which was about 1.2 miles of hiking for the us. Note that that straight-line distance between the 2 peaks was something like 0.7 miles. Going from Butterfly peak back to the Quartz peak trail only took us 1 hr and 20 mins. We made better choices on the route back and made it back to the trail well before dark around 6 pm. The main difference is we decided to hike North of West Butterfly peak and that route was much better on that side with a lot less brush. We made it back to the Quartz trail by 6 pm and still had plenty of light at that time. From here, we started heading down the rocky Quartz trail and wanted to get as far down as we could before dark. The first mile was very steep and rocky. We still have plenty of daylight and probably made it 1.5 hours down that crappy rocky trail until it got dark. We used our headlamps to get down the final 1.5 miles to the trailhead. The trail was very rocky which slowed us down a lot. We could swear it wasn't this rocky going up!
We kept moving taking only a few short breaks for water and ended up getting back to the trailhead around 8:30 pm. |
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Michael Williams
IT Professional
Rocky Point Vacation Rentals
Ocean Front Condo in Rocky Point, Sonora, Mexico
www.beachfrontmexico.us
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