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| | | Peak 3513 - McCloud - Gray, AZ | | | |
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Peak 3513 - McCloud - Gray, AZ
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| Hiking | 10.09 Miles |
2,630 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.09 Miles | | | |
| 2,630 ft AEG | | | | |
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none
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| no partners | | I decided to head NW of the Valley and hike to a couple of peaks that I had not done before:
1) Peak 3513
2) McCloud Mountains HP and the Gray Benchmark
These were 2 separate hikes from 2 different trailheads, but they aren't too far apart.
Peak 3513
Peak 3513 (elevation of 3,513 feet (duh!) and prominence of 1,243 feet) is an unnamed peak in an unnamed range in an unnamed part of Arizona. The best place to describe its location is to say that it is in the Santa Maria River Valley. The peak is to the east of Highway 93, between Wickenburg and Wikieup. The starting point for the hike is on Santa Maria River Road, which runs off of Highway 93. It is a wide, well-graded dirt road that most any vehicle can drive on.
The hike is all off-trail, but the off-trail is not very brushy, but there is some loose rock to deal with. It wasn't real slippery, but the ground was generally not real firm. From the starting point, I went up a ridgeline and then went sideways down below Peak 3322 before making my way up to the summit. It was a straightforward off-trail summit -- nothing really bad, but nothing really exciting either. It was slower than I expected it to be, but I given the terrain I was taking my time. There were some nice views at the summit, and I am glad that I did the hike.
McCloud Mountains HP/Gray BM
This one was a road walk -- I took the Arizona Game & Fish "Designated Access Route" off of Highway 93. With a 4WD vehicle you could drive all the way up to the summit, which has an antenna farm on top. But I came out there to hike instead of 4-wheeling, so I hiked up the road, I actually enjoyed the road walk -- the scenery was nice, and a lot of the vegetation was prickly pear and catclaw, so I was happy to be walking on a road instead of bushwhacking!
There were nice views at the summit, and on my way back I stopped by a subpeak that had the Gray BM and 2 reference marks. I hung out at the BM for a bit and had a snack before heading back down.
This is one is apparently not hiked very often. There was a Lilley-MacLeod logbook placed there in 1988 that had very few entries. My triplog for this hike is the first one on HAZ in 27 years!
Synopsis
I enjoyed hiking in this remote, out-of-the-way, forgotten area. I thought that McCloud was the better of the 2 hikes -- walking on the road gave me time to enjoy the scenery rather than being off-trail and looking out for whatever peril lurked with my next step!
Distance and elevation gain for the two hikes is below. Stats above are the sum of the two.
Peak 3513: 3.74 miles with 1,387 feet of elevation gain
McCloud/Gray: 6.35 miles with 1,243 feet of elevation gain |
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