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| Hiking | 7.20 Miles |
2,014 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.20 Miles | 5 Hrs 4 Mns | | 1.47 mph |
| 2,014 ft AEG | 10 Mns Break | 20 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | Unfortunately as a last-minute hike I didn't get a chance to re-read FLYING_FLIVER's triplog... so not only did we NOT have an appropriate container for the information at the wreck plaque, but we also missed out on the benchmark disk location.
However... the summit log (placed by Bob Packard in 1999) was present, inside a Nalgene bottle in the rock cairn at the summit. The only 'entries' since Preston (kingsnake) in September 2015 trip:
1. A business card with a photo of two hunters on one side and "Ugg Lee & me" written on the back dated 2016
2. An entry in the notebook by what appears to be a couple who were here in May 2018.
(I wonder if these folks found the log that FLYING_FLIVER said was missing and returned it to the summit cairn.)
But I'm getting ahead of myself just a bit...
On the road by 5:30 am, a quick 2-hour drive and we were soon hiking in the pines. Within the first 1/8-mile we had already scared up a half-dozen white-tails, and by 1/4-mile we added another four. Over the course of the hike we saw well over a dozen... but of course all were gone too fast for any photos.
The hike provided plenty of variety... grassy tread on the ancient mining road, tree-fall, narrow & rocky drainage, tree-fall, thickets of locust bush, tree-fall, smooth-rock drainage, tree-fall, manzanita, tree-fall, manzanita, tree-fall, pines, and of course tree-fall... and yes, negotiating fallen trees was THE worst challenge of the hike for me. Going over the lower trees wasn't bad, but with my back issues ducking under the others was a real problem... by the second one I would have a stabbing pain the rest of the hike. So from then on, while Tracey was still ducking under, I was pushing through brush to detour around them. It helped that deer, elk and even cattle had made some of the detours, but it didn't make it much easier.
When we reached the top of the Rose Creek drainage,instead of turning right immediately, we headed straight out to the plaque. After a quick glance we started up along the ridge but soon realized we better get over to the old road. In retrospect, we should have gone right back down to the plaque and re-trace our steps back to the turn... but, it looked there were enough openings in the manzanita to take a nice sort-cut, besides, I have my trusty titanium shears.
'Fraid not! ](https://hikearizona.com/dex2/images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall")
Barely 30 feet from the getting back on track, we got so caught up in the manzanita it was time for the shears. I was stuck fast, trying to back out against-the-grain so Tracey had to get the shears out of my pack and hand them to me. And by time I managed to cut a path through the manzanita I had also cut through one of my boot laces. 
Then again, most laces are far too long anyway... as long as they didn't come untied I was good.
But even back on-the-road the manzanita was so bad we were better off finding a route over the first peak instead of around it. No matter, it's just more AEG. Eventually we reconnected with a somewhat clearer portion of the road and continued more-or-less along it except when detouring more tree-fall and/or heavy batches of manzanita. I didn't realize it until later but did a fair amount of wandering around, and most of that was more climbing.
As alluded to in other triplogs, the summit provides no view other than a few open areas with trees sprinkled all around. But as I mentioned, we found the log in the summit cairn. More wandering around the top, taking in the views to the west and with the temp rising noticeably it was time to head back.
On the return trip we thought we'd see if there may be an easier route following closer to the road. Another mistake, more up & down along with more manzanita trimming, with a vengeance until reaching the top of Rose Creek drainage and from there on just a reverse of the ascent.
The highlight of the hike (for me, anyway) was an encounter with a 5 or 6-foot gopher snake. As usually happens when hiking with Tracey, I step over the snake without seeing it, but I disturbed it so when Tracey comes along she hears the snake rustling the leaves as it's moving, she looks down and sees this big fat snake and freaks out... screaming like a little girl, I mean high-pitched screaming. Although she'd never made such a ruckus even with rattlesnake encounters in the past, without even looking back, I knew a snake was the cause. And even though it wasn't an easy portion to walk through, she had no trouble running right by me yelling snake... big... snake!
So of course it's up to me to find out what it was... just a gopher snake, not quite as long as the 7-footer we encountered on Black Ridge some four years ago, but still a good size. I took a quick photo but by time I started a video it wasn't moving so just a touch of it's tail and I got an obligatory wide-mouthed hiss before it moved on.
The rest of the hike Tracey was having a bit of PTSD... every stick appeared to be another snake and any wisp of wind that moved the grass or leaves had her heart racing again. But she survived.
Not many photos this trip... with the early onset of pain ducking under trees I guess my heart wasn't really into it. Otherwise I'm sure I would have wanted to check out more along the edge of the cliffs, if nothing else to see where I had passed across hundreds of feet below while searching for signs of the wreck in April 2015. |
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Route Editor
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If it was anyone else, I would have been nervous leaving my wife behind. 
-- resulting in a net AEG of outer space (59,791 ft.). (I removed the spike from my posted route, which is why it is in two segments.)
Ok, the view made the whole hike worthwhile 
