| | -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
| |  |
|
1 |
-
|
| | |
|
| Hiking | 4.80 Miles |
1,957 AEG |
| | Hiking | 4.80 Miles | 5 Hrs | | 0.96 mph |
| 1,957 ft AEG | | | | |
|
|
| |
| Linked |
|
none
[ show ]
| no linked trail guides |
| Partners |
|
none
[ show ]
| no partners | | Its Christmas eve and I decided I would attempt to get to the top of Browns peak. Its a crazy thought as I have never been on Browns trail to begin with..and no experience with "rock climbing" of any sort. Sure I've been on the top of Squaw Peak(Piestewa) but thats a hike as in hiking a trail...no rock climbing on there.
So back to Browns trail, a friend asked what I was doing and told them I was going "hiking" for exercise. They decided to come along not knowing what they were getting into.
I took the east rout on the 143 road and proved to be much easier than the west intrance. I highly recommend taking highway 87 to highway 188 down to 143. Atleast if you're driving in a average car.
Got to the trailhead at 1pm, it gets dark at like 5:30 so we had time to do it. Hiking the trail was calm, beautiful day... not hot or cold. We got to the Saddle at around 3pm... we took our time.. being at the saddle was just awesome in itself...gorgeous views as everyone who has been there knows. Looking up at Browns peak was just astounding...a picture can't tell you how massive this mountain is.
I decided we were going to start going up farther and said "we'll go up as far as we can".
I made a big first mistake from leaving the saddle...the trail that goes up isn't exactly easy to follow sometimes and we ended up climbing the first scree chute...maybe some people know what i'm talking about...theres the main scree chute to the top of Browns peak and theres one just before it. So that first chute we did was hard in itself to say the least, I thought that was the main chute but as I got to the top I quickly figured out the "main" one was right in my face and it looked massive. Again some reason i'm insane to do it but we continued up to the main chute.
Here we are now climbing up the main chute, it starts off just ok, but quickly becomes something thats quite insane to be doing and some weird drive is making us do it...remember we have absolutely no rock climbing experience. I very well know if I lose my foothold or a rock comes loose from my hands I could die easily...and anyone whos been up there knows thats no exaggeration. I remember saying outloud " oh my god" " what have I got myself into"...
and at no point on the chute did we ever say "we gotta go back down"...
about an hour later we did it..we made it to the top. I could not believe it... we made it on our first try. There was no celebration really...the view was astounding from the top, I could see Humphreys peak to the north with no snow on top of it. Took some pictures, a small video. We stayed on top for only like 10 minutes, I was terrified about the thought of going down... I quickly realized that we had to start going down and after we started going down my fears subsided and we made it down safely. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be going down but still VERY tricky in some spots. By now the sun is almost going down, we have maybe an hour of sunlight left to get back to my car.
I'm extremely proud to have climbed to the summit of Browns peak, it is my greatest feat in my life. I regret putting my life at risk like I did but I will never regret actually doing the climb..if that makes sense..
I'm not sure i'll ever do some rock climbing again of this sort, but I know theres no greater climb than this in the Phoenix area. I would highly recommend this hike to the Saddle, but after that its all on you and if you have no real rock climbing experience you're putting your life at risk. Do it at extreme caution if you dare to do it.  I'll add pictures of this hike.
Curt
NOTE: I did not find the Ammo can with the log book. Not sure I just missed it somewhere on top but I didn't see it. |
| _____________________
| | |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Route Editor
Route Scout
