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| Hiking | 3.41 Miles |
509 AEG |
| | Hiking | 3.41 Miles | 1 Hour 40 Mns | | 2.05 mph |
| 509 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Not the planned hike. I wanted to hike the road to the towers, but discovered that it was closed due to ongoing construction. I had done a drive by a year ago of the Casa Grande Mountain Trail system, so I decided to drive over and take a closer look. Taking the Peart Rd into the TH I discovered that there are 2 TH’s off of Peart Rd. (There is also a third TH off of Arica Rd). What I call the secondary TH is located where the pavement ends. Even though this is the first TH you come to, there are no amenities or park information. Just parking for about 10 cars and a couple of unnamed trails and an ATV road that heads into the park. To get to the primary TH, (this one has a trail map, some benches and a port-a-john), you need to take a dirt about .5 miles further east.
Wow! Looking at the trail map made me realize there were more poorly contrived trail systems than Peoria’s Sunrise/Westwing Mountains. The map syllabus had 7 named trails, but there seemed to be lines going everywhere on the map with no names. One of the trails was called Connector Trail (6.33 miles long), but I couldn’t see any indication of this trail on the map. Three trail took off from the TH, none of which were signed.  Since I wasn’t sure what was what, I decided to do my “gridding”, which I love to do anyway. I took the most northern trail, which turned out to be a use trail that went over to the secondary TH. I then followed the ATV road back, which I guess is part of Peart Canyon. The area was trashed and had a lot of old, dilapidated fire pits, cement tables and rock made outhouses. Love to know the history of the area. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if this predates the 1980’s. I only walked the canyon road for a short distance before following a side road up to the top of a hill. Decent views for the short climb. Then followed a use trail along the ridge which dropped down to the trail system. I think this connected to a trail called Sun One. This trail is not on the trail map and the trail sign is different from all the other trail posts I saw. I’m thinking the Sun One Trail is a late addition to the park system. Took this trail back towards the car and ended up merging with the Ridge Trail. As I was hiking this trail, it split three times. All three splits (from what I could read. Most trail signs were in very bad shape), were named the Ridge Trail. ](https://hikearizona.com/dex2/images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall") Wasn’t too worried as this was an exploratory hike. I continued to grid the north side of the park, hitting several trails. None of which were signed.
Even though this wasn’t what I had planned I always enjoy doing a new trail. No wildlife. Talked with several people during the hike. All agreed that the trail system was poorly signed, but they appreciated having a trail system in the area. Lot more trails to do so I’ll be back.  |
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