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| Peak 4520 - Hassayampa River Canyon Wilderness, AZ | | -
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| | Peak 4520 - Hassayampa River Canyon Wilderness, AZ | | | |
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Peak 4520 - Hassayampa River Canyon Wilderness, AZ
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| Hiking | 8.85 Miles |
2,109 AEG |
| | Hiking | 8.85 Miles | 6 Hrs 47 Mns | | 1.52 mph |
| 2,109 ft AEG | 57 Mns Break | | | |
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[ show ]
| no partners | | This was a hike to Peak 4520, the highpoint of the Hassayampa River Canyon Wilderness. This wilderness area is a few mile NE of Wickenburg.
I made the slow drive from Wickenberg to the BLM parking area near the Williams Ranch. It is about 16 miles from the McDonalds in Wickenberg, and I imagine that the drive from there took about 1.5 hours. The road has recently been graded, and the drive is about as good as it will ever be. I'd still recommend a 4WD vehicle though.
At the first part of the hike we crossed the Hassayampa River, which is bone dry right now, so getting across it was obviously no problem.
We followed the Cooper Trail (such as it is) almost all the way to the peak, which is a bit south of Seal Mountain. I doubt if any maintenance has been performed on this trail in years, if not decades. If it wasn't for cows walking on the trail, it would likely have been reclaimed by nature long ago. You could follow the trail fine in some places, but in other places it was difficult to see where the trail was.
We eventually made our way to the west side of the peak, and went off-trail to the summit. There are nice views up there so we hung out for a bit. There is a large cairn at the summit, but I did not see a summit register. We returned to the TH the way that we came.
It is a nice area out there -- once you get above the river into the uplands there is lots of chaparral, palo verde, saguaro, and other desert vegetation. My prior hike in the area was in the spring, and there were lots of wildflowers; there were no flowers blooming today though.
The slow drive to the TH and route finding issues on the crappy trail made for a long day.
You are almost guaranteed solitude while hiking in this area. |
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| Civilization is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there |
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