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Hiking | 5.59 Miles |
1,717 AEG |
| Hiking | 5.59 Miles | 4 Hrs 34 Mns | | 1.64 mph |
1,717 ft AEG | 1 Hour 10 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | This was a hike to the high point of the Date Creek Mountains. The elevation of the unnamed high point isn't measured, but on a topo map it is in a closed contour between 4,920-4,960 feet; it has clean prominence of 1,560 feet.
The Date Creek Mountains are a small range in SW Yavapai County, near the town of Congress.
From Congress I drove in on a dirt road that doesn't show up on topo maps. It eventually merges with a mapped road. I parked about 1/4 mile before the road gets gnarly. You don't really need 4WD prior to the gnarly part, but there are some dips in the road that would likely trip up a crossover SUV. Once the road gets gnarly you'll need something beefier than a stock 4WD vehicle.
We hiked about 2 miles on a road then went up a steep slope to the highpoint area. The footing was good and it was a bit brushy on the ascent, but the bushwhacking wasn't too severe.
There are several large boulders at the top, one of which was the obvious highpoint. The way to get to get on top of the highest boulder wasn't obvious, but after poking around a bit I managed to find a way up. There is a second boulder next to the highpoint boulder that was a little lower than the highpoint boulder. There is also a third boulder that is adjacent to and a little lower than the second boulder. I climbed up on the third boulder, then jumped over to the second boulder, and from there jumped over to the highpoint boulder. Before doing this I changed into a pair of grippy approach shoes that I brought with me. The boulders are made of grippy granite, so even though there was a bit of exposure going from boulder-to-boulder I didn't think that it was very sketchy.
There is a Lilley-MacLeod register at the summit, and I recognized several names in the register, including @azhiker456
This relatively short hike was fun, and I am glad that I did it. |
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Civilization is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there |
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