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| Hiking | 8.36 Miles |
34 AEG |
| | Hiking | 8.36 Miles | 2 Hrs 36 Mns | | 3.22 mph |
| 34 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Once Consolidated Canal crosses Lindsay Rd., the Maricopa Trail is a concrete path, on the east side of the canal, the remainder of the way to Park of the Canals. The next major road crossing — Guadalupe Rd. — is also busy, unsignalled and unprotected.
Past that, every major street crossing is signalled and protected. I used the signal to cross Baseline Rd., but after that waited for breaks in traffic, then jogged across, rather than make the vehicles wait another 20 seconds afterwards. 
In the early Gilbert miles, the west side had small horse properties. Yet, every time I switched sides, so would the corrals. Doh!
I never did share this segment with horses. Bicycles were another story: There were tons of them, often in groups of a dozen or more riders. Some even being pedalled. I have no love for “eBikes”, but an even worse phenomenon is small, gas-powered, bikes that zip along at 30 mph. After one blasted past me, he turned left on Brown Rd. It was so loud, I could hear him for a minute after he disappeared! 
Meadowgreen Park and Blue Moon Park had trailside cabanas and water fountains. There are no rest rooms, unless you count the Whataburger on Broadway Rd.
On the far side of Blue Moon Park, Consolidated Canal terminates at a large division gate. Tempe Canal continues west, while the cement Maricopa Trail path turns north along the east side of the South Canal. Because I was not continuing ten miles to Granite Reef Dam, I crossed to the west side of South Canal for the final short stretch to Park of the Canals. (SRP History of Arizona Canals)
I’ve now completed 161.94 miles of the Maricopa Trail.
Hiking Video: https://vimeo.com/813832847 |
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Wildflowers Observation Isolated
Not much grows in the vicinity of a canal, other than occasional creosote, brittlebush and African daisy. |
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| http://prestonm.com : Everyone's enjoyment of the outdoors is different and should be equally honored. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
Route 
Not sure if it was not desiring any extra adventure and or having little confidence in my navigation skills but Linda wisely downloaded a route. Afterwards to boost my feelings of accomplishment there was a comment about how a certain 10 yo 
could have easily done this hike .Surprised at how few others were out today, even made Wind Cave Trail enjoyable as doubt we even came across a dozen others on it. We skipped the cave , there were a couple of ladies already there, hate to admit but the blue paint marks made a nice route to the summit on the south end which we had to ourselves, not even a bee joined us. Now heading back north wrestled with a Palo Verde tree along the short section to reach the rock formations you need to traverse in order to reach the rest of ridge line hiking route. Once on it was easy to stay on route here though a few side trails tempt one to go to the left to overlook the cliffs, vegetation was minimal.Approached the path to the summit side trail better than before by going up higher than I was usually going along here. At the summit pulled the top off the ammo can and found the hinge was broken on it , signed in, took a minute to get the top lined up and back on , no time to read the log as I could tell foot tapping intensity was increasing. The next high point along the way has a couple of cairns and a fire ring with a large rock collection, I’m suspecting some cult holds meetings here seemed even a bit weirder because we could hear the wind howling but only felt calm, saw an unusual white Boulder focal point from here another opinion suggested it was a rock covered in bird poop, 
so we decided on a snack break here. Finishing off the ridge line by scooting down the “cliffs” then hitting the dreaded scree slopes. We both managed to reach the Pass Mountain loop trail Maricopa trail junction without incident. Did spot one gnome but no wildlife. About a quarter mile from the trailhead we encountered our first hikers seen since leaving Wind Cave Trail, also for perhaps the first time no bikes today. Thanks Linda for the company and for performing the chollalectomy!
