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| Swede West Chiricahuas, AZ | |
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| | Swede West Chiricahuas, AZ | | | |
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Swede West Chiricahuas, AZ
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| Hiking | 4.60 Miles |
1,828 AEG |
| | Hiking | 4.60 Miles | 8 Hrs | | 0.71 mph |
| 1,828 ft AEG | 1 Hour 30 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | Happy Veteran's Day! Thanks to all of the Veterans who have served and made our Country safer.
Note: My posted route involves about 3 miles of driving some rugged road. See directions below for more. The hiking portion of the route involved a lot of bushwhack. I'm sure there are better routes. I thought it would be better to stay in the canyon for longer. Along the hike we found portions of the pack trail but then lost it in some areas.
Brian and I camped the night before at a good starting point for Limestone mountain. See my trip report for the camping location we used. The next morning we slept in until about 7.30 am, had breakfast and drove the rugged 4x4 road not knowing the condition of the road. The topo map showed a pack trail and the entire hike was supposed to be roughly 6 miles, so we figured we would have a fairly easy time with this hike. We were wrong. The pack trail was non-existent in many places. The brush was very rough, the grade was steep and we probably spent 90% of the entire distance either in washes, on messy ridgelines, or bushwhacking, and only 10% of the distance on fairly decent unmaintained trail.
Some of the older maps showed a Pine Gulch trailhead that seems to no longer exist. I was able to get my 4x4 Chevy truck within about 0.2 miles of the old trailhead. Right past where I parked the road was completely washed out / destroyed.
We hiked in the direction of where we thought the road would go. The old trailhead seemed to be right in the middle of a wash. We didn't see any signs or anything there. We kept walking in the wash and found pieces of trails that seemed to follow the wash. We were not sure if these trails were animal trails or old hiking trails. After hiking about 0.58 miles we ran into a canyon and decided to follow that since we seemed to have lost the trail. At 0.72 miles we exited the canyon and decided it would be better to follow a ridgeline up. This worked better for a while.
The hike was hellish from our 1 mile mark to about 1.45 miles. It was a complete bushwhack, very slow going and we were just trying to get to better terrain. Once we finally got higher, the terrain flattened out we were able to walk animal trails North for a few hundred feet. Next we needed to get down to the saddle West of peak 7413. We needed to take this slow because it was quite steep. There was some class 3 downhill climbing in this area. When we got lower, we saw a trail that took us up the West side of peak 7413. It was great to see a trail after all of this time and we hoped it would take us up to Swede West. The trail took us to the West side of Swede West, and then continued North along the West side of Swede West. But, thankfully, it was a relatively easy open Country hike to get up to Swede West. On Swede West, we looked East toward Swede and saw a lot of vertical cliffs. Our original plan was to go there, but after the rugged bushwhack we did, we decided to save that for another day.
We didn't find a registry on Swede West and unfortunately neither of us had a jar. Now that we know more about the terrain, we may go back there another time. I believe it took us 3 hrs 30 mins to get to this point from our starting point. Had there been a trail, we could have done this hike in 1.5 hrs. It's amazing how slow going it can be without a decent trail.
We started heading back down the West side of Swede West and ran back into the old pack trail. This trail took us all the way back to the saddle West of peak 7413. I should point out that this trail was faint in some places on the West side of 7413 and in some areas we jumped a few switchbacks where it was easy to do so. At the saddle West of 7413 we saw a cairn and tried to follow a faint trail leading Northwest. We lost the trail within a few minutes and could not find anything resembling a trail in this area. We ended up doing a terrible bushwhack that involved side hilling for around 45 minutes where we were only able to cross about 800 feet of hellish terrain. Then, we decided to get on the ridgeline where we were able to make much better time. The ridgeline was full of rock formations and a lot of dead manzanita branches. We were able to stay on the ridgeline but needed to drop either right of left on the rugged areas. It seemed like we dropped right more often. After another 45 minutes we were able to cross about 0.5 miles of rugged ridgeline. Then, we were relived to be at the saddle East of peak 6992. On the saddle, we saw the pack trail and also a section going back West along the North side of the terrible ridgeline we crossed. It would be interesting to go back there and see how far that trail could be followed.
From the saddle, we found pieces of pack trail heading down but it felt like we were only 50% on a trail and 50% weaving through open spaces. The terrain flattened out and eventually we found ourselves in the main wash. At least we knew our bushwhacking for the day was over. The wash was wide open and a bit rocky but it was one of the more pleasant parts of our hike. We felt that if we went back, we would want to follow the main wash as high up as we could, get to the same saddle again and try to follow the old pack trail, at least whatever portion still exists.
If anyone is interested in exploring this area and trying to find the old pack trail, send me a PM.
Unfortunately, I ruined my hiking shoes on this hike. The side was all torn out on one of them. I never had this happen before and it's an indication of how truly messy and rugged the terrain was. So, just know that the trails in this area probably haven't been easy to follow in at least the last 30 to 50 years!
Stats
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Distance (round trip): 4.6 miles
AEG: 1,828 feet
Strava moving time: 3 hrs 43 mins
Strava elapsed time: 8 hrs
Driving directions
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(4x4 required for final 3 miles)
see my trip report for Limestone.
from Limestone parking area (31.680254, -109.318525), drive 0.13 miles to main road and turn left
continue for 1.1 miles and turn right on FSR 719
continue for 1.5 miles on rocky 4x4 road
turn right (tight turn)
continue for 0.2 miles and find pullout on right side of road
This is a good place to park
location: 31.714048, -109.319296 |
| _____________________
Michael Williams
IT Professional
Rocky Point Vacation Rentals
Ocean Front Condo in Rocky Point, Sonora, Mexico
www.beachfrontmexico.us
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