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| | | Asbestos Pt & Zimmerman Pt, AZ | | | |
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Asbestos Pt & Zimmerman Pt, AZ
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| Hiking | 12.54 Miles |
3,246 AEG |
| | Hiking | 12.54 Miles | 7 Hrs 27 Mns | | 2.09 mph |
| 3,246 ft AEG | 1 Hour 27 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | Finding something out of the heat, and away from the Labor Day crowds was my goal for the day, and the Sierra Ancha fit the bill. We actually parked and started from FR488 since we weren't sure if we were going to do an out & back, or loop around to the north and have to walk back south down Hwy 288, so we started out with a little over half a mile of road walking. Nice warm up, but I did the obligatory whining about walking a road.
We got to FR489, and started heading uphill. That road would be awful to drive (only for very capable 4wd) but made for easy hiking. Lots of bugs, but temps were nice, and the scenery was great. Old mines are always a favorite of mine, so looking for those kept me entertained on the hike up. Some areas are definitely fire damaged, but there was a lot more green than brown.
At the saddle, we headed to the old mines on the south side of the mountain, and followed the old road west. Mines galore--I was happy. I walked to the entrance of each one to take a pic. And almost immediately encountered a rattlesnake. No surprise there. We took some pics, then moved on to the next mine. A couple mines later, my phone died. The screen wouldn't work, I couldn't reset it, etc, so I had to switch to my camera, which was luckily still in my pack. Shortly after that, we got to a mine that had some old bunks in it, and saw another rattler. Took some more pics, and continued on. Near the west end of the road, there was a large mine set back maybe 50' or so.
After that, we returned to the saddle, then followed the road up to Asbestos Point (short steep offtrail for the last bit), took a few pictures, then found some shade to have an early lunch just below the summit. We then headed back to the saddle, then over towards Zimmerman Point. At the end of the road, we headed off trail, generally following the old fence. Fire damage actually helped clear some brush in places, but it was still slow going, and steep in a lot of places. Great views all around from the top of Zimmerman, and we took another breaks on the rocks towards the NE end. High clouds had finally moved in from the south, which helped make the temps more comfortable.
We made better time on the way back down from Zimmerman, then it was easy walking back down 489. We encountered a 4wd club who were Forest Service volunteers doing road maintenance. They were friendly, and we chatted with them for a while before continuing on our way. Once back at 288, it was the road walk back to the car, where we saw a garter snake on the side of the road--finally, a harmless one! Fun hike, and nice to do something different. |
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| Stop crying and just go do the hike. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
Route 
](https://hikearizona.com/dex2/images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
so we picked our crossing locations carefully. Our route took us over the top of a knob down to a small saddle and then up the side of Z Point. On the way back we traversed around the west side of the knob which was a slightly easier route with less brush and fewer fence crossings. However we lost sight of visual landmarks in the tall forest and would have wasted time wandering around without the aid of a gps.
benchmark summit. I asked Larry if he would take a look at a possible route on Google Earth and draw-up a GPS Planning Route for us. He was kind enough to do so, and we both understood that it still might not be a safe route for us to try. We had two backup options just in case, and to also help with timing, I offered to drive my modified Jeep the three miles one way up serious 4WD FR489 instead of us having to hike it. It still took us forty-five minutes one way to drive it in my "Grasshopper" 
