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| Boulder Bob's Cabin Trail, AZ | |
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| | Boulder Bob's Cabin Trail, AZ | | | |
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Boulder Bob's Cabin Trail, AZ
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| Hiking | 4.10 Miles |
883 AEG |
| | Hiking | 4.10 Miles | 3 Hrs 22 Mns | | 1.26 mph |
| 883 ft AEG | 7 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | With the forecast calling for rain in the afternoon, we were looking for something not too far away, ideally on the shorter side...and hopefully without a whole bunch of climbing right from the trailhead. We had initially settled on visiting Ballantine TH, but it wasn't ideal with the trail gaining elevation right from the start.
J popped onto Google Earth to have a look at the terrain and discovered a road, and subsequently figured out that that was the Pipeline Trail. We figured we'd hikle that to the Ballantine Cabin area, have a look see, then if we still had time we'd head over to check out Boulder Bob's Cabin...
Needless to say, we had to pivot as FR1704 was much rougher than anticipated. Plenty of erosion and large rocks to negotiate - we made it just shy of the pullout area for the Boulder Bob's Cabin Trail before getting stopped by some rocky stair steps and a very large boulder sitting prominently in the middle of the "road".
As we gathered our things, we realized we had a bovine audience, wondering what on earth we were up to. They stayed in the distance, but continued to seem curious as we headed up the road to pick up the trail. Staying on the designated path was hit or miss - while there are cairns, there are enough faint sections where things become unclear, and we opted to walk where there appeared to be a path of least resistance.
Eventually, we found ourselves following a wash towards the ruin area - J picked up a trail climbing out along one side of the drainage - I had lagged behind (likely distracted by a flower), and didn't see him depart the watercourse. I continued on in the drainage, heading for one of the marked ruin areas where we wound up converging. After having a look at the rock walls nearby, I headed up the hillside to see if a large cairn visible from below happened to lead to anything interesting - after climbing up to it, and having a look around, it didn't seem to be leading to any unique ruins or features - but it afforded some decent views.
I headed back down to rejoin J, where we continued on in the drainage, stopping to have a look at additional ruins as we passed. As we got closer to Boulder Pass, the ruins dwindled while the cloud cover was thickening overhead and the wind was picking up. We decided to head back to the truck to head back down the road, ahead of the rain. It was a nice short hike with some fun exploration. Definitely don't recommend FR1704 though. |
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Wildflowers Observation Isolated
Plenty of storks bill, everything else was pretty sparse. |
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Happier when hiking....I may not move fast (and I'm often distracted by wildflowers), but I'll get there eventually  |
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