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| Hiking | 13.77 Miles |
1,419 AEG |
| | Hiking | 13.77 Miles | 5 Hrs 53 Mns | | 2.53 mph |
| 1,419 ft AEG | 27 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | Back up in the Payson area to hit another section of the Highline. Headed out and parked at the end of FR144 to pick up the trail....though we were expecting a T-junction right from the beginning as downloaded routes showed the trail crossing the road perpendicularly. This is another area that has been affected by reroutes. We didn't see an obvious T at the parking area - the path from the parking area headed east - and we had wanted to head west. Turns out if we'd walked just a bit more, we would have seen that the path eventually hit the re-route, and would have given us an option to go in either direction. Instead, we picked up a bit of the old alignment after first checking out an old rain collector and saying hello to a pair of cows that were grazing in the area. The old path eventually allowed us to connect to the new alignment and off we went. After about four miles of easy walking, we found ourselves back up atop the ridge where we stopped last time. After a brief break, we turned back, staying on the new alignment and continuing on past where we parked to get some additional mileage in further eastward. The trail is in good condition, for the most part - some areas are a bit uneven from cows walking on it when it was soft. Much of the walking heading east was through large stretches of Manzanita, and didn't seem to get into nearly as many sections of oak/pine. We tried looking for the Myrtle Trail junction, though it seems to have disappeared - or requires some routefinding since the new alignment for the trail brings the tread quite a bit south of where the original path and junction were. We opted to stop before starting a descent into the Ellison Creek area, leaving that for next time.
Several hillsides in the area are seeing the same fate as that ridge with the masticated/mulched manzanita. We saw a couple of the machines that they are using to get that work done parked along FR144. As we looked more closely on the drive out, it seems the forest service mows down the manzanita and understory periodically - we could see evidence of sections having been done in prior years once we knew what to look for.
On our way out, we made a stop at the Dude Firefighter Memorial Trail, but found the trail access closed/blocked off with crime scene tape. Seems the tape has been there for about a month at this point.
Wildlife: plenty of birdsong, a squirrel, occasional butterflies and lizards, and a pair of cows. There were fresh elk prints along the trail but we didn't manage to catch sight of any larger wildlife.
Other People: None! |
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Wildflowers Observation Light
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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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