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| Hiking | 24.63 Miles |
5,300 AEG |
| | Hiking | 24.63 Miles | 11 Hrs 43 Mns | | 2.41 mph |
| 5,300 ft AEG | 1 Hour 30 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | Early end to 2022, and for my customary Mazzy year-ender I went back to Boulder. Started the year by looping Pine Mountain, so there was some poetry in ending by looping its little brother. Followed in the 2014 footsteps of @BiFrost and sent their route to RS. Timed right, this route is one of the best ways to spend a day in Central AZ. Jumped on this one as the cold front finished up. Went CCW an hour and a half before sunrise.
Wrote about this in January, but Ballantine is largely no good past the corral. So it was creek bed until the climb out, where the trail picks up until the ridge. After that, got off track before Rock Tank. Gets easier to follow after as the trail heads into the pines toward the AZT connector.
The very top of the connector is gone, so I headed straight up to the road. There's a barbed wire fence the way I went, but it seemed easier than the alternatives. Clouds passed overhead and storms built to the west as I walked the road. Decided if the ridgeline wasn't covered in clouds by the time I got there, there was no way I would turn back. The sky was cloudy and darkening over everywhere but Boulder, so I took it as a sign and headed up the ridge.
It's a bushwhack around the boulders until the first saddle. Then the route enters the Bush Fire perimeter. The only burned pines are around the first saddle. The mountainside is a nice and easy walk under the green, green pines until the third saddle, where in years prior to 2020 the route became a significant bushwhack. Maybe the only good thing to come out of that fire is that the brushy sections of the Boulder Mountain ridgeline mostly burned. It was almost disappointingly easy. Still tough so many miles in. There's one notable scramble before the final climb to the summit. Other than that the terrain wasn't too bad, mostly piney or burned away.
Made the summit, and like in 2019 I only go to enjoy it for about a half hour before the rain clouds started to roll in. By the time I made Pipeline, the mountain and ridgeline were swallowed up. Took a break at the cabin, and proceeded to Ballantine and down. Awesome cloudy sunset made for a great finish. |
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Rock Tank |
76-100% full |
76-100% full |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
Route 
The Pine Creek Loop and lower Ballantine Trails are 90% burnt. It'll be decades before this area returns to what it once was. The Pipeline Trail is becoming more obscure but still there's evidence of some badass fat tire motorcyclist utilizing it. No water anywhere, but that was expected this time of year. Just right of A-Frame (east of the southern prow) of Whorled Wall is the most direct route to the summit. It's loose in the first third but surprisingly solid through the upper two thirds. There's a huge dead Agave stalk marking the top out. Yeah, it'll eventually fall over but there are several more Agaves growing in the same place that may continue to mark the route.
Water was running from Mud Springs but we didn't check the source. I took a short detour to check out Boulder Mountain Spring but only went as far as the creek drainage to verify water was running. From there it is all downhill back to the parking.
and 2 hikers/3 dogs on the way back.
Anyway off we went and we took the Jeep about 3 miles up the roughest road it has ever seen and found a nice pull off. From there we hiked the road the rest of the way to the cabin. This is no road for unmodified 4x4s past this point. See CannondaleKids recent triplog and videos.
Started to walk up the road with the culprit and a DPS officer stopped and gave us a ride to Round Valley. 
