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| | | Two Peaks and a Swingset, AZ | | | |
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Two Peaks and a Swingset, AZ
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| Hiking | 12.80 Miles |
3,819 AEG |
| | Hiking | 12.80 Miles | | | |
| 3,819 ft AEG | | | | |
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| Partners |
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none
[ show ]
| no partners | | I was wanting to do a social distancing hike, and since I never saw another carbon based life form all day, this hike fit the bill!
I wound up bagging 2 peaks in the Mazzies -- Pine Butte and Mount Peeley -- and also checked out the Mazzie Swingset.
I got the idea for this hike from a triplog that @hikerdw posted the other day, and I was originally going to replicate his hike, which went to the Mazzie Swingset and then went around the circumference of Pine Butte. Then I was looking at triplogs and noticed that @LJW did a hike that went to the Swingset and the summit of Pine Butte, so I decided to do that, although I did a much shorter version of his hike. Since the Pine Butte-Swingset hike that I did was relatively short, I was also able to hike up to Mount Peeley, which has been on my radar screen for a while.
I drove north on Highway 87, and then turned left on FR627 at the signed turnoff for Mount Ord(FR 626 goes right up to Mount Ord). From FR 627, which is a paved road, I turned right on FR201 and drove to the junction with FR 191, where I parked.
After parking, I did a 2.6 mile RT out-and-back hike up to Pine Butte. The hike starts out on something of a trail that is very, very rocky and steep. After that you go off trail over about 3 false summits before climbing up to Pine Butte. The off trail isn't bad -- there is a fair amount of manzanita, chapparel, wolfberry, and other assorted pleasantries to deal with, but for the most part the vegetation isn't too thick so you can walk around most of it. Getting around the vegetation on the final ascent up to the Pine Butte summit is a little more challenging, but it isn't too bad. There are some nice views at the top, so it turned out to be a decent hike. I returned the way that I came, and then when I got back to the staring spot, I took FR 191 over toward the swingset. I had to take another old, old forest road off of FR191 to get to the swingset, which was near an old mining area. I looked at some of the old mining remnants, took a snack break at the swingset, and then returned to my truck the way that I came.
I then got back in my truck and took FR201 until it ends at the Mount Peeley TH. Then I hiked up to Mount Peeley. It was a really nice trail, although somehow I continued on the trail for a bit past the turn up to the Mount Peeley summit. After discovering my mistake, I backtracked a ways and then made my way up to the summit. There wasn't much of a trail going to the summit, but it wasn't too bad. The views at the summit were worth the climb, and I hung out there for a while. I found the benchmark disk, but I could not locate any reference marks.
This was a good hike -- I have been wanting to do Mount Peeley for a while, and was able to add a couple of other destinations to make a good day out of it.
FR201 is in good shape, but it is a narrow road, and I am glad that I did not meet anyone while driving on the road.
Distance and elevation gain for the 2 hikes that I did are:
Pine Butte-Swingset: 7.0 miles and 2,208' of AEG
Mount Peeley: 5.8 miles and 1,611' of AEG
The stats above are the sum of these two |
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Wildflowers Observation Isolated
Wildflowers were few and far between. There were a few goodings verbena and some buckthorn (desert/mohave ceonothus) blooming, but there wasn't much wildflower action on this hike. Fortunately there were some nice views to make up for it! |
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| Civilization is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there |
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