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| Hiking | 10.98 Miles |
3,033 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.98 Miles | 7 Hrs 30 Mns | | 2.00 mph |
| 3,033 ft AEG | 2 Hrs Break | | | |
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| no partners | | We camped the night before in Horseshoe canyon, which is a few canyons away. To get to Horseshoe canyon, take US-80 to Sunrise road and travel West for about 2 miles. Turn right on Owls Butte trail, continue for 0.5 miles, then turn left on Zent rd., continue for 0.6 miles and you will enter Forest Service land. You will see 2 corrals on either side of the road. You can drive between the corrals and continue as far as you would like. We found a nice camp spot within about 1/4 mile of the Forest Service entrance.
At night a few bulls were making a lot of noise near us. I never heard this kind of noise from cows before. We were not sure if they were angry that we were there or not. Either way, we were not moving. The cows eventually got tired of their apparent tantrum and moved on...
In the morning, we drove out to US-80 and headed Northeast. We crossed into New Mexico, through the town of Rodeo, and North toward Portal road. We turned left on Portal road and followed it through the town of Portal, AZ and turned left on S Cave Creek road and took that a few miles to the trailhead which was on the right side of the road.
At the trailhead, there was room for about 7 or 8 vehicles. We parked a little after 9 am. When I got out of my truck, there were 2 hikers standing there as if they were waiting for me. I was a bit confused. They said they were from the Portal hiking club and they thought I was a guy named Tony. Apparently, there's a hiker named Tony who looks like me. We talked with the hikers about Silver peak, Portal peak, and a few other places. Some day we will probably hike these other areas.
We started off on the Silver peak trail. This was one of the best trails I've seen in a long time. We heard from a local hiker that the trail was improved over the last few years. More switchbacks were put in apparently. There was a sign at the trailhead that said it was a 4.5 mile hike to Silver peak. We eventually found that it was 5.22 miles to the summit. The hike is a bit longer than it was in previous years but perhaps not as steep. That's OK with me.
Looking up, we could see 'The Fingers' which were some huge rock formations. The trail went up toward those fingers and then wrapped around the North side of the mountain. We were in the shade for quite some time because the mountain blocked the sun. About 1 mile in, we saw a few prickly pear cactus with a circle of protective rocks around them. It was a bit funny cause you would never see this in the Tucson area, but I suppose in this area, there aren't massive amounts of cactus, especially at 5,400 feet elevation.
It was not possible to see the summit until the last few minutes of the hike. From the trail, there were a lot of trees blocking the view of the summit. But, eventually, the trail reached a saddle. There was an old maintenance shack on this saddle with the door detached. The building contained some old buckets and cans, a fire extinguisher, an old sign, and not much else. I continued West to the site of the old lookout tower. There were some concrete steps leading up and a concrete foundation that was still there. Inside the concrete structure was an ammo box with a lot of registry entries going back a few years.
After taking photos of many of the registry pages and views, I went back down to the main trail and walked the use trail to the Silver peak benchmark at 7975 elevation. This last section of trail was a bit overgrown but it only took about 5 minutes to get up there from the saddle. At the benchmark, I found a rock pile with a registry that was buried deep under the rock pile. The registry was hard to read because of sun damage. I took a few photos of the few pages that were readable.
We had a late lunch at the saddle and left around 2.30 pm to head down the trail. It was roughly 5 miles to get down to the trailhead. I estimated that we would get back to the trailhead around 5.30 pm but we made good time and reached the trailhead around 4.45 pm. We only stopped to take a few photos along the way.
We only saw 3 hikers on the trail the entire day and all of them were below the bottom 1/2 mile - a couple coming down as we were hiking up during the bottom 1/2 mile and another hiker coming up on our last 1/4 mile from the trailhead.
I would highly recommend this hike to anyone as it was a beautiful area with a very nice trail and incredible views. There was no parking fee.
Stats
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Distance (round trip): 10.98 miles
AEG (feet): 3,033
Strava moving time: 5 hrs 16 mins
Strava elapsed time: 7 hrs 30 mins
Driving Directions
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Follow Google maps to...
Silver Peak Trailhead, 42 Forest Rd, San Simon, AZ 85632
..or..
From the Tucson area and points North...
Follow I-10 E to W Power Rd in Cochise County.
At roughly 18 miles East of Bowie, AZ, take exit 382 from I-10 E
Take exit 382 for I-10 toward Portal Rd/San Simon
0.2 mi
Turn left onto W Power Rd (signs for Portal Rd)
0.9 mi
Turn right onto S Noland Rd
17.0 mi
Continue straight onto Montgomery Rd/S Noland Rd/Paradise Rd
302 ft
Slight left onto Foothills Rd
8.3 mi
Turn right onto Portal Rd
1.3 mi
Slight left onto 42 Forest Rd/S Cave Creek Rd/Forest Rd
Continue to follow 42 Forest Rd/S Cave Creek Rd
Destination will be on the right
1.5 mi
Silver Peak Trailhead
42 Forest Rd, San Simon, AZ 85632 |
| _____________________
Michael Williams
IT Professional
Rocky Point Vacation Rentals
Ocean Front Condo in Rocky Point, Sonora, Mexico
www.beachfrontmexico.us
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