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| Hiking | 11.20 Miles |
2,200 AEG |
| | Hiking | 11.20 Miles | 5 Hrs 30 Mns | | 2.04 mph |
| 2,200 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | After 5.5 years and 45,000 miles, I finally decided it was time to get a new set of tires for the Stillermobile. I’ve been avoiding dirt roads for the last 6 months, and it was time to get back out to the wilderness. With the cooler winter weather, I’ve been hitting some local hikes doing trails that have been recently built. There are a couple trails at the higher elevations in the Sierra Anchas that I haven’t done yet, but I want to save those for when it’s too hot to hike around here. But the Grapevine Trail is down lower by Cherry Creek. And the last time we hiked there in August, it was brutal, so this is a good time of year to get that done. Wally, Joe and Alex were on board to join me for this one.
The ride in and back out was probably harder than the hike itself. From my house it’s over 85 miles to the end of the pavement, and then it takes 2 hours to travel 26 miles up FR203. The road isn’t really awful, but it is slow going after Devil’s Chasm. 
We started our hike at the Lucky Strike Trail, and then hiked the Grapevine Trail south to north, and hiked back on FR203. At the Lucky Strike “trailhead”, we found Lee was overnight camping with a buddy of his. It was nice to finally meet Lee, as well as his dogs, Cup and Blanco, who are very friendly and like to play. Since we’re both Xterra owners, we discussed some issues about our vehicles (rear hatch struts, charcoal canister emissions issues, etc) and our same choice of tires. After talking for a bit, we had to move on since it was a long day just getting out and back home.
The hike up Lucky Strike was much easier than the last time we hiked it, since it was over 30 degrees cooler and we hadn’t already hiked over 5 miles. We found the Grapevine Trail junction easily and made our way north on that trail. It starts out very clear for a while, and one spot is really nice and shady as it goes thru a canyon with a stream and a nice canopy of shade. Within a mile, however, it does get overgrown. I honestly didn’t think this was all that bad. There was only 2 or 3 times I had to stop to figure out which way the trail was going, and at no time did it ever seem like the trail was gone, like what you see in a lot of the Mazatzal Wilderness trails. No catclaw to deal with really, just some brush to push out of the way, and some treefall here and there. In the middle of the trail, there was evidence that someone had been thru semi-recently and cut some of the manzanita bushes. Every canyon that the trail went thru had running water, which also made it a pleasant hike. Even with that, it was decided that taking FR203 back to the car would be the best bet for ease and saving time. The total actual hiking time was 5.5 hours, which was better than I expected. We almost spent more time than that on FR203.
At the south end of the Grapevine Trail just as it started to get overgrown, we found an odd campsite that looked like they were doing something illegal. Lots of black irrigation tubing, and a whole bunch of trash left under a tree. Wally and Joe checked it out, Alex and I didn’t get too close to in case something was booby trapped. Kind of sad to see something like that.
On the way out I tried to clear a rock on FR203 that was bigger than it looked (to me  ) and it hit the frame. Fortunately no damage was done and after I moved it, we were able to get home without incident. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
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8.6 mile round trip Grapevine Trail #135, I had then stated that I believed ancient Salado Cliff Dwellings resided within some of the more dominant butte alcove cliffs off this trail.
I managed to slip and take a very bad fall in my bathtub shower and did some damage to my right shoulder, enough damage to justify a quick visit (thank you trishness!) to an orthopedic surgeon for needed x-rays. Fortunately, nothing broken and I'm now much better but a slow healing process which would not allow me to wear my heavy day pack again until this ~Dec'13.
. This day is definitely a day of reflection with so many very special & challenging moments in this remote & rugged wilderness area, many long day and nights day hiking and arriving back home late at night and also due to the driving distances from the Phoenix area, a lot of $20. bills+ expended for gas money. Some of these 13 trails required as many as 3 seperate trips to access & complete the entire trail lengths.
