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| | | Mesquite-Waddell-Ford Cyn Loop & Goldwater, AZ | | | |
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Mesquite-Waddell-Ford Cyn Loop & Goldwater, AZ
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| Hiking | 16.22 Miles |
3,051 AEG |
| | Hiking | 16.22 Miles | 8 Hrs 4 Mns | | 2.26 mph |
| 3,051 ft AEG | 54 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | We did a short hike to the Verrado Petroglyph site first thing in the morning [ triplog ] , then drove over to the regional park for this one. That meant a later start than usual, and we had to wait in a line of vehicles at the park entrance. I assumed White Tanks gets plenty of traffic on typical weekends and hoped we wouldn't be battling additional Super Bowl tourists staying in the west valley for the game tomorrow. I don't know what level of busyness constitutes "normal" here, but we were able to get a spot right near Waddell Trailhead in Area 7, so that was an encouraging start.
We hiked the loop clockwise, starting on Mesquite Trail. The first few miles had a steady incline and passed in a repetitious blur as were constantly trying to make our around groups of hikers, which was annoying but not unexpected. The traffic started to thin out past the Willow Canyon intersection and continued to improve from there. We were doing well time-wise, so we took Goat Camp Trail up to Barry Goldwater Peak. All the way up, and even from the peak, Radio Summit looks like it's higher than Goldwater, but judging <100 feet of elevation difference from that distance is tough. The views from the top are nice but mostly obstructed by the towers and utility buildings, so I didn't spend much time up there, and I didn't see the red jar with the summit register mentioned in the guide.
We returned on Goat Camp Trail and resumed the clockwise loop on Ford Canyon Trail. That was especially enjoyable once the trail dropped down into the creek bed and we got into the stretch with the white granite slabs and the tanks. I vaguely remembered hiking through there from the opposite direction one winter years ago when the tanks were mostly empty and partially frozen. There's some fun scrambling in that area, and we somehow missed one of the signs where the trail leaves the creek bed and bypasses the steep drop-offs in the canyon.
[ youtube video ]
A little past the missed turnoff, it immediately became more difficult to get around the pools, and we were facing some 20+ downclimbs that I certainly didn't remember going up last time...seemed like a bit much for an official trail in a regional park, and a quick look at the GPS confirmed we'd missed a turn a few hundred feet back. Ford Canyon was more impressive than I remembered, but I suppose I appreciated it more after a closer look at some the rougher sections.
After the canyon opened up again, the city came into view, and I could read the giant "Super Bowl LVII" sign on State Farm Stadium when I zoomed in. We eventually reconnected with Waddell Trail and finished off the loop around 5:30PM. Between this hike and Verrado Petroglyphs in the morning, we finished with ~20 miles for the day. Other than the first few miles on the loop, the crowds weren't too bad, and traffic wasn't especially bad on the drive home...we weren't sure what to expect the night before the Super Bowl. The weather was perfect today, in the mid-70s, and it was nice to get back to the White Tanks after a 5-6 year hiatus. |
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