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| Forest Road #11 Rock Creek, AZ | |
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| | Forest Road #11 Rock Creek, AZ | | | |
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Forest Road #11 Rock Creek, AZ
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| Hiking | 4.10 Miles |
430 AEG |
| | Hiking | 4.10 Miles | 1 Hour 54 Mns | | 2.16 mph |
| 430 ft AEG | | 18 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | I was a bit beat after mountain-biking 65+ miles over 4 straight days, including 30 minutes picking up trash along our adopted mile of Bush Highway, so I almost decided to take a PTO day of sorts.
Ok, so what should I do? Where should I go?
After taking a few minutes to come up with something worthy of a hike on by now a fast-warming day, I thought, what the heck, I'll check out one of the, shall we say, possibly questionably labeled location posted on Google Maps.
All it required was a 32-mile drive, including a mile on a well-eroded dirt road to the spot I chose to limit the hiking distance should the temperature get out-of-hand. It was only .2 mile to the supposed location so it worked out just right.
Ok, so just which location was I checking out?
The Paula Hopper Memorial Swing along Rock Creek just off of Forest Road #11, which I had mentioned on the Knoll Lake island forum thread.
So what did I find?
I found everything that I expected... Nothing!
I spent a dozen minutes criss-crossing back-and-forth while racking up a quarter-mile yet found nothing that could be construed as a memorial, let alone a swing. If anything it was just an area where cattle had trampled pretty-much every foot of ground not held by vegetation of some sort, whether a tree or salt cedar bush, etc..
Something ventured, nothing gained... oh wait, I gained knowledge of something that does not or never did exist.
Ok, while I had driven FR #11 a number of times previously, I had never hiked parallel to this (North) portion so I might as well wander around a bit, who knows what I may encounter.
With a clear sky the sun was soon making itself well-known so I decided to close a loop of hiking on either side of Forest Road #11, cruise by the corral and maybe check out Mud Springs, which was close to the car.
On the return I left FR #11 to climb up a hill for a view which which overlook the location of the supposed memorial and I took photos from various locations to show there was nothing to see here.
At the corral the calves (or younger cattle anyway) were camera shy while the older ones essentially ignored me.
One item that caught my eye was a Priefert Cattle Squeezer so of course I had to take a photo of it.
(Back home I went down a short, but VERY interesting rabbit-hole to get the full story about the Preifert Family Legacy, all it took was a search for "Priefert")
Last thing to address... Mud Springs. Nope, I did NOT venture close enough to determine if there was any water flow. At no point did I see an easy route to get closer without having to cross two separate barbed-wire fences. Both were very tight and while the 86° start was ok, it was now 101° and I was thoroughly drenched in sweat so it was time to end this charade.
NOTE: About the Google Map edits... just for you @chumley 
After finding absolutely nothing to confirm any memorial, I decided to see how responsive Google is to any map edits. So, I selected the location, selected "make edit" then chose "does not exist" (the choice is actually "does not exist or never has") and it said the edit would be reviewed within 24-48 hours. And to my surprise, within a few hours I received an email stating the edit was accepted and should be 'live' within 24 hours.
Ok... while it very likely WAS live within 24 hours, it was 3 days later before I saw the location had been removed (on Google AND HAZ Route Editor), which may have been because I had not cleared the browser cache.
So, whether a human or AI did the job, it appears Google is very responsive. Oh, yeah, we'll have to see if the location stays gone or if whoever put it there in the first place adds it back.
To be determined... |
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