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| Hiking | 4.18 Miles |
2,690 AEG |
| | Hiking | 4.18 Miles | 6 Hrs 28 Mns | | 1.03 mph |
| 2,690 ft AEG | 2 Hrs 24 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | We met up at 6:30AM, and after brief introductions and a few rounds of "You're the guy who broke Joe!", we headed for the Sierra Estrellas. This was my first time back there in 8+ years and my first time hiking with anyone in this group, and it made for a fun day.
We had a short road walk and a photo op at some random lawn chairs before picking up an easy-to-follow use trail that led up the drainage. We reached the stone structure for Don Joaquin's lost mine...for some reason, I was expecting something more than stacked rocks, but cool history there. The lost mine, like Bruce's phone yesterday, remains lost--other than a few filled-in holes across from the structure, we failed to locate the long mineshaft that he promised us and had marked on his route.
The use trail died out as we continued up the drainage, but route finding was easy--with the peak directly above us early on, it was a straight shot up the drainage. It became increasingly steep as we continued, with a series of dry falls in the middle, but there was a lot of fun scrambling, and when one side didn't look good, we'd find a better option on the other.
Higher up we split up, and Bruce and I followed Bob up to the right as we veered a little off the route, and chumley and Linda stayed left. More loose rock and brush to deal with up high, but Bob led us through and we met up with chumley and Linda on the ridge, then made our way up a short chute to the summit. There's a benchmark on top (not shown on the map), but no summit register that we found, though we didn't look very hard. Views were clearer than expected with the recent air quality, and chumley pointed out landmarks on the horizons.
After a long snack break at the top, we started down and I followed Bob again as he led the way down our same path, with Bruce, chumley, and Linda taking the other route until we regrouped farther down. We took a few more long breaks and crossed paths with a group of four who weren't headed for the peak but were out there "looking for plants and animals and stuff." As we finished off the hike, we played a game of "guess what type of vehicle they're driving" and nailed it as we drove past them on the way out.
It was really nice meeting everyone, and great hearing all the HAZ stories from the group. Happy I was able to join them and be there for Bruce's record-setting "longest non-lunch break." Big thank you to Linda for driving and for organizing the hike--it was a fun day! |
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