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| Pivot Canyon Rock & Spring via FR 149, AZ | | -
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| | Pivot Canyon Rock & Spring via FR 149, AZ | | | |
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Pivot Canyon Rock & Spring via FR 149, AZ
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| Hiking | 7.10 Miles |
838 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.10 Miles | 3 Hrs 53 Mns | | 1.95 mph |
| 838 ft AEG | 15 Mns Break | 18 LBS Pack | | |
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| Partners |
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[ show ]
| partners | | Somewhat of a rerun of our hike just over a month ago, the main changes being:
1. A co-worker of Tracey's tagged along for a new experience with a couple of baby boomers.
(Rachel was less than half Tracey's age and a few years older than 1/3 my age)
2. We took the high road (old FR 6304) on the way out so as to take our lunch break by the huge boulder in the center of the canyon on the return trip.
* Although (like last trip) we did go East on the long-closed FR 9386T from junction with FR 6304, we only went far enough to where we saw all the elk climbing the slope to the North, which is where we climbed this trip. Why would we do that, you ask?
3. Well, in preparing this trip with hopes of finding something new and different to check out, using Route Editor I found there was a water tank up there, which may have been why the elk went that way?
4. What did we find? The water tank at the West end of the old FR 6306... ok, so at the moment it was a dry tank.
5. Since the slope back down to FR 6304 was steep with plenty of thorny vegetation, we wandered off-trail from the tank more-or-less in the direction of where we would cross FR 616. In actuality, we wandered some distance NE to avoid a few deep drainages on the way to FR 616.
(After all, I didn't scare Rachel off with intensive off-trail stuff so soon.)
6. The slope down to FR 616 was steep but thankfully the elk deemed it worthy of providing a route with switch-backs so the likelihood of a tumble on the descent was negligible.
From that point on, we followed the same route to Pivot Rock and Pivot Rock Spring as we did a month ago. Shortly before reaching the spring we met three elderly (older than me?) gentlemen, who had just visited the spring. The three, who mentioned they were surprised by the encounter, after asking where we were from, said they were from Tempe, Ahwatukee and Scottsdale.
Back to changes:
7. Rather than continuing past and above the spring and following FR 616 back to the canyon as we did last month, we retraced our steps back past Pivot Rock and returned to FR 616 along the canyon floor.
8. We took Rachel through the tunnel under FR 616... only after we assured her there were no bees.
9. We stayed along the canyon floor until reaching the massive boulder with trees growing out of it at 34.47777 -111.405520, where we stopped for our lunch. During our break we heard what sounded like a small frog croaking, seemingly within feet of us, but being unable to locate it before finishing our break we figured oh, well and continued on.
The rest of the hike back to the trailhead adjacent to the black mountain, while completely uneventful, wasn't boring in the least.
Overall it was a very enjoyable hike, with pleasing 68-80° temps. |
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Route Editor
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