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| | | Pinals 1/2x Unsuper Loop, AZ | | | |
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Pinals 1/2x Unsuper Loop, AZ
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| Hiking | 10.48 Miles |
2,286 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.48 Miles | 5 Hrs 16 Mns | | 2.33 mph |
| 2,286 ft AEG | 46 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | Spent Saturday at home doing homethings resulting in a required Sunday outdoors. Recruited Karl for something closeish to town without involving a Sunday afternoon on the 17. I hadn't been back here since Telegraph re-torched it again and figured it would be good to see how things fared.
Past experience had me thinking it was a few weeks early for prime color, but the rest of the checklist worked out so we headed out to hit the mountain anyway. I knew the closures had been lifted a year ago, but didn't properly research and got turned around trying to drive up the washed out road -- which is definitely not open. Had to backtrack to Globe and swing around to Kellner. Somehow I have never actually driven up this road before, I've always hiked the trails up. The drive was longer than anticipated but enjoyable, with the most courteous and attentive dirt road drivers I have ever encountered (they all pulled aside to let me pass within moments of my approach!  )
We parked at the top of Icehouse and immediately encountered a trail crew doing maintenance. The 9:30am tower-station-drinking forest-service-shirt-and-badge-wearing volunteer team leader informed me that the trail is still closed. I decided not to argue and had a polite discussion about the unusual trail clearing techniques at work before continuing on by. There was literal sweeping going on. With brooms. The tread was wheelchair smooth, and clear of even the smallest pine needle or leaf. Bare dirt, ready to erode with the first drop of unobstructed flowing water. 
The volunteers informed me that these trails are really not meant for hikers, as they are primarily mountain biking trails. Well, that explains it!  What wasn't explained is why 10 people were using brooms to clear the first half mile of trail when the next two miles were littered with deadfall, rocks, and erosion. They did say they don't ride or hike back up the hill so it made no sense to me why they would spend so much time manicuring a tiny part of a trail that was largely impassable by bikes anyway. Give it a year or three and they should have the whole thing looking like a bocce court for your hiking pleasure!
While not mtn bike friendly -- at all -- it was absolutely fine to hike. A few quick hops and steps and no problem following the tread. Very low impact burn with no moonscape and plenty of healthy regrowth among all the large trees that all survived the ground fire here.
We made a little shortcut to head over to Telephone, which is thoroughly overgrown and prickly. Apparently this is a hiking trail, not a biking trail  . After reaching the ridge it cleared up nicely and climbing back up toward sixshooter was enjoyable.
We headed down on sixshooter for a bit looking for some great color spots we remembered from past years, but as had been true the whole way so far, it was green, green, and not a sign of anything but green, so we turned back and made our ascent to Ferndell.
Plenty of trailwork has been accomplished on top of the mountain, with numerous trees cut and cleared -- thanks presumably to the mtnbk trail crews. A couple spots of color looked great, and the corner at Ferndell was prime. From here we headed up to Pinal Peak and had a snack on the lookout rock while the buzzing from the new adjacent tower killed far more brain cells than the summit beer did.
From Pinal we avoided roads on the enjoyable Middle Trail and Pipeline Trails heading back to the start. On Joe's recommendation we contemplated Bobtail for exactly zero seconds  . We'd both been to Signal a couple of times before so we skipped the short walk up to the fire tower and headed back to the truck. A couple of courteous drivers were passed on the drive back down the hill. Uncanny awareness and polititude for drivers here!
Happy to see most of the enjoyable upper half of the mountain will continue to be a worthy hiking destination, despite the fire. |
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Autumn Foliage Observation Isolated
90% all green. A couple of isolated spots of prime color at the highest elevations. Ferndell is always a couple weeks ahead of the rest and fit that description today. |
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| I'm not sure what my spirit animal is, but I'm confident it has rabies. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
Route 
Steady flow from the pipe 
and boywithdogs over to the Pipeline Trail #193 and then the Middle Trail #202 to get to Pinal Peak. We spent a few minutes by the towers and then I wanted to show them the Rock Ladder.
. There were a few larger pockets of extreme color, but next weekend should be prime.
