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| | | Little Four Peaks & more, AZ | | | |
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Little Four Peaks & more, AZ
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| Hiking | 8.40 Miles |
3,251 AEG |
| | Hiking | 8.40 Miles | 5 Hrs 55 Mns | | 1.48 mph |
| 3,251 ft AEG | 15 Mns Break | 25 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | Yesterday, the moment Tracey saw Jack's photo of the stone hearts [ photo ] she said we have to go there tomorrow. But wanting to do more than a 2-mile hike, I dug up some 1 & 2-year old tracks of hikes I did to Little Four Peaks as well as others on both sides of Apache Trail. Even after warning her it's all off-trail she was up for it.
We parked at the TH along Apache Trail and made a bee-line straight east up to the ridge that marks the western border of the Superstition Wilderness. Once on the ridge we headed very carefully south toward Little Four Peaks.
I say very carefully due to the very high wind gusts, I'm sure some were in the 45-50 mph range as I was almost blown off my feet a few times. Even though it was strapped on tight, my hat was ripped off my head, almost taking my glasses with it. It sailed way up in the air before being carried over a hundred feet down-slope, so while Tracey sat down for a break while I slid down the slope to retrieve it, then scramble back up. This time I ran a strap from my pack through the cord on the hat, so the next half-dozen times it will be blown off, I won't lose it.
Once we reached the saddle just north of Little Four Peaks we decided with the high wind gusts not to scale any of the peaks... even skipping them we'd hit plenty more high points during the hike. From there we completed the loop back to the TH, continuing across Apache Trail where we would stop for a quick lunch break before climbing the ridge on the west side.
Although earlier on our hike from across the highway we had seen some semblance of a trail going up to the ridge, we were unable to locate it until we were at the ridge looking back down. It turned out we climbed too high to soon. Oh well, we're here now.
From there we followed a track from a few years ago to continue south to the yellow rock area where we reached a high point before beginning our long loop on the west side of Apache Trail. Since I had followed the ridge in the past, we decided to stay west of the ridge all the way to the old defunct Forest Road 1817 before crossing back east across Apache Trail for another ridge loop back to the car.
Dang! ](https://hikearizona.com/dex2/images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall")
I hoped to hit 1,000 miles (my tentative goal for 2015) on this hike... I'm one measly mile short. One more hike and I'll have racked up 300 miles more than last year.
Yes! 
I just topped 300,00' AEG for 2015, a full 100k more than last year. |
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