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| Boynton Canyon hotspots, AZ | |
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| | Boynton Canyon hotspots, AZ | | | |
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Boynton Canyon hotspots, AZ
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| Hiking | 15.95 Miles |
3,192 AEG |
| | Hiking | 15.95 Miles | 9 Hrs 19 Mns | | 1.71 mph |
| 3,192 ft AEG | | 15 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | Put a lot of time into plotting a course around Boynton to see lots of ruins and things. From my couch the stats seemed fine and I thought I'd finish early, but I underestimated how compacted all the vert was into seriously steep hills right before all the cool stuff. Drove up from Phoenix to get to the trailhead at sunrise and the lot was already nearly full. Had been up there once before and was first to the Subway for my tourist pic so I already banked that before. This time my sunrise target was starting with Kachina Tree, that had a nice climb up to it. It took a few tries to find the right social trail to get back down, but I did hit a couple nice ruins up there. Then I made my way to the Subway since it was on the way, it was a total zoo which I expected. I didn't even bother getting a picture of it all. Then I headed farther north looking for Arch ruin, I hadn't written down exact gps coords and I know I was close but wasn't able to locate it and moved on. The next target was the Dreamspeaker cave ruin. I saw 3 ways up to its mesa online and looked at them on Google earth and looked at the stats when I tried plotting it on Garmin and decided to add a bit of mileage to go all the way out to the west edge of it and ascend from the west which seemed to have slightly better stats. Well when I got there it was the steepest hill I think I've ever climbed. Not sketchy or exposed but just so steep, I was on all 4s trying to get up loose dirt and leaves, sometimes carving steps in the dirt to help. Finally got up and checked out Boynton Needle and a ruin beneath it. It was difficult to make it to the Dreamspeaker, there was a faint social trail but heavy manzanita growth made it nearly impassable. I got right below dreamspeaker cave but there was 1 last fairly easy climbing move to get up to it, and I had just started cramping and was by myself. I opted to use my selfie stick which I brought for just such purposes so I could get my phone high enough to get a good shot of the cave ruin. By this time my bladder had run out and it was approaching noon and I was way up on this mesa. I did have about 1L of gatorade left. Coming down was so much easier and the hill was done in no time since I surfed most of the way down. I had to go all the way back to the lot to resupply. On the way back in, I stopped by the Guardhouse ruin, which looked like an easy 5 min diversion but was of course up another steep hill. My cramps were getting more frequent at this point but I made it up. Then I got back into Boynton and hit Grandmothers cave next, by which time I was struggling with cramps quite a bit and exhausted but made it. I didn't bother trying to get up to grandfather's cave at all and it wasn't really in my plans anyway. I thought about calling it here but... My last couple stops were so close! I got back to the trail and this time headed for the Terrace ruin. Battling cramps I managed to make it up yet another steep hill... Mostly. I got to within 50-100 feet of the Terrace ruin and cramps stopped me completely. I could recover a bit but any attempts to take a single step upward were always met with a sharp cramp. So at that point I aborted the missions and left Terrace ruin for another day, as well as the Women's Village ruin which had been my last planned stop after. I took a long while resting and refilling back at my car. Amazing day but a difficult drive back to Phoenix with cramps always on edge.
I jogged as much of the Boynton trail as I could and still averaged only about 1.5mph due to all the route finding, bushwhacking, photography time, and super steep hills everywhere |
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