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| | | Desert Classic to Gila Valley Lookout, AZ | | | |
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Desert Classic to Gila Valley Lookout, AZ
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| Hiking | 6.70 Miles |
1,531 AEG |
| | Hiking | 6.70 Miles | 3 Hrs 11 Mns | | 2.45 mph |
| 1,531 ft AEG | 27 Mns Break | | | |
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| Partners |
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| partners | | Parked in the neighborhood off Desert Foothills & Desert Broom and walked in on the access trail. Crossed Desert Classic and stayed on the old road that follows the telephone??? lines heading north. The old road is wide and flat at first, but narrows as it steepens and starts climbing the ridge on the left. Eventually, it’s steep with loose gravel. The drainage on the right has a lot of large crushed granite that appears to have been dumped over there, the layout doesn’t look natural.
The ridge continued to head uphill, following the lines. We took a short break at the last pole on that ridge. From here, the trail faded significantly, although there was still usually a faint route to follow as we scrambled uphill. The higher we climbed, the steeper it got. We used our hands in a few places, but there was no exposure. I was glad we were ascending, because trying to descend on that loose rock would have been awful. No real brush, but plenty of cactus to be aware of. I aimed for the two closest towers above us and we eventually reached the road just a few hundred feet west of the Gila Valley Lookout.
From the Lookout parking lot, we took the new connector over to National. The top part of the connector follows the ridge Denny and I have used to connect between the lookout and Corona. It felt nice to be on a real trail again. Once on National, we headed west, with a side trip to the old Holbert Lookout. Before that, I noticed an old CCC building I had never seen before. It’s on the north side of the summit road less than half a mile west of Dobbins Lookout. In all these years, it had never caught my eye until today.
Continued on National to Telegraph Pass and down that, which was crowded, as expected. Took Desert Classic back east to complete the loop over by the neighborhood where we parked. Fun day with Wyatt, and he did a great job on the steep scrambling. |
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| Stop crying and just go do the hike. |
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