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| Hiking | 1.16 Miles |
566 AEG |
| | Hiking | 1.16 Miles | 1 Hour 17 Mns | | 1.42 mph |
| 566 ft AEG | 28 Mns Break | 5 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | Although I had a busy four-summit day scheduled, wanting to avoid the early-morning humidity I was in no hurry to get started. Add to that the 13-mile 75-minute off-road drive just to get to the trailhead and it was after 8 am before I began the climb. At least it was a nice breezy 85 degrees, perfect weather!
Immediately upon leaving the trailhead was a very steep climb so no time to warm up. I took advantage of the fence line, following it most of the way up, moving away from it only when the cholla was too thick. But as short as the climb was it was over pretty quickly.
Once over the top of the first rise I could now see my objective. From here it didn't look very inviting but I figured I'd wait and see. On the approach I hoped for some kind of opening with a route to the summit. When I reached the bas it appeared thre was a gap on the west face so that's where I began. I got only about twenty feet across a traverse before my comfort level was breached so I turned back to scout out another route. I dropped down about 40 feet then moved farther across and saw a chute that held promise. The rock was so porous offering plenty of handholds but I proceeded cautiously.
About 20' left to go I reached a point where I either had to leap up and grab a boulder and swing around or give up and back down. After getting this close I wanted to go for it, but decided to analyze every motion a few times before making the attempt. With the boulder appearing to be free-standing I made a bail-out plan should it come loose. Good thing I did. When I leaped up and grabbed on to it the boulder broke loose and it was bail-out time. 
I pushed myself away onto a small platform to avoid the falling boulder, only to have the boulder stir up a nest of bees. 
My first thought was get away as fast as possible but I had to wait for all the rock-fall to stop before I could make my way back down. Thankfully the bees just flew into me, banging against me over and over again but not one attempted to sting me.
](https://hikearizona.com/dex2/images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall")
Whew! After dodging the boulder and swarm of bees, I was hoping I hadn't used up all my luck for the today. 
Not one to give up easily, I headed around the base to the northeast and found an easy sloping chute right up to the summit. 
Guess I should have scanned around the whole base before attempting to reach the summit. Oh well, it's inviting me up so let's get to it!
Wow! Great views from the summit! I spent some time just taking it all in before taking a number of photos as well as a 5 minute video. But with four more summits on deck it was time to wrap it up and head back. I took a meandering path on the return trip for a few more photos then hit the steep descent.
I posted 30 photos here on HAZ with the full set of 43 photos here:
Peak 4140 photos
I also posted a 5-minute 360 degree panorama video from the summit here:
Peak 4140 video |
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