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| Hiking | 14.33 Miles |
2,517 AEG |
| | Hiking | 14.33 Miles | 6 Hrs 18 Mns | | 2.44 mph |
| 2,517 ft AEG | 25 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | Tackled AZT2 doing the key exchange hike again. Wally and Jason drove, I hiked with Wally, Andy hiked with Jason. Wally and I met Mitch at the Canelo Pass TH and hiked southbound to Parker Lake. Jason and Andy drove to Parker Lake and hiked northbound to Canelo Pass.
the north end of AZT2 is very similar to the south end of AZT3. The 2nd biggest climb of the hike starts right away. The trail isn't too steep, but there is some loose rock that's not fun to deal with. The steep descent after that still has loose rock, which was the bane of Jason and Andy's at the end of their NOBO hike.
After the first big hill, the trail goes into a canyon and has some gentle ups and downs. At about the 6.5 mile mark, the trail starts to ascend on the 2nd big hill. At the 8 mile mark for us is the high point of the hike. I arrived to find that Wally and Mitch had met up with Jason and Andy and everyone was eating lunch. We were a mile ahead of them and were glad to hear that we had a mostly downhill and gentle hike to Parker Lake, or something like that.
Along the high points on this passage there are some nice views of the nearby mountain ranges and the Canelo Hills. It was kind of frustrating though because the trees were blocking a lot of the views, preventing getting any really nice shots of anything. The trees did provide more shade than usual, however, so I shouldn't complain.
We had planned to meet Jason and Andy where 83 meets Canelo Pass Road, as I was thinking they would finish before us (i.e., me) since I'm always the slowest hiker. As part of the planning for this, Mitch gave Andy the keys to his truck to drive it out to 83. When we got to 83, they weren't there, so we drove the extra 3 miles to the TH. Within minutes of arriving, Jason showed up. We transferred all our things back to the correct vehicles and Andy still hadn't shown up with Mitch's keys. Jason said he saw Andy making the final descent, so we left Mitch for dead and headed back to Phoenix.
The weather was chilly at the beginning in the shade but warmed up quickly. First hike of the year without my sweatshirt hoodies. The lighter extra layers I had I shed during lunch. Only wildlife we saw was during the drive in on 83, a herd of pronghorn that Wally nearly wiped out as I yelled for him to stop. Andy and Jason lingered for pics but we took off.
nice to get another section done and to hike with Mitch again, 15 years later. thanks to Wally and Jason for driving and Andy for joining us, nice group for the day. |
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