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| Hiking | 14.96 Miles |
3,089 AEG |
| | Hiking | 14.96 Miles | 8 Hrs 54 Mns | | 1.96 mph |
| 3,089 ft AEG | 1 Hour 15 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | First time hiking with ishamod in almost eight months, and he'd had Four Peaks Trail on his list for a while. I wanted to summit Camelback and/or Buckhorn while we were in the area, but he wanted to stay on-trail for his return to hiking, so we just made it an out-and-back. Driving along 188, we saw a bird swoop down and carry off a big lizard from the shoulder of the highway...cool start to the morning, though not so great for the lizard...
I'd hiked to Mills Ridge TH from Vineyard years ago, but this was my first time starting a hike from there. FR 429 was in good shape...a few spots where high clearance is preferable, but a regular car could make it up there without much trouble when it's dry. There was one truck in the small parking area when we pulled up, but it left immediately, and there was a cache of water and a cooler with soda/beer for AZT through-hikers left by local Tonto Basin "trail angels."
It was in the 50s when we started, but we warmed up quickly with the steady climb, gaining ~900 feet in the first mile. Around the mile mark, we went a short distance off the trail to check out a hilltop ruin. There was a lot of pottery along the trail and all over the hillside, including some larger pieces, and though the dwelling walls were almost entirely collapsed, it looked like it must've been a fairly large site that covered most of the hilltop, with perimeter walls down lower.
Over the next mile and a half, as we dropped down to Buckhorn Crossing and started climbing again, we passed at least four more collapsed ruins sites that the trail passed by, or sometimes directly through. All of them had quite a bit of of pottery...surprising given the amount of traffic that passes through, and odd that part of the AZT is routed straight through so many sites like that.
The trail leveled off ~4 miles in, and we took a lunch break on the north side of Buckhorn Mountain around the five mile mark. This being part of the AZT, the trail was mostly well-maintained, though it got a little more overgrown past that point, but only for brief stretches. Beyond Buckhorn Mountain, we started to see the impressive, unobstructed views of Four Peaks. We weren't going to have time to hike to the end of #130 at the pace we were moving, so we turned around a little before 1PM, just short of Black Bear Saddle and hiked back the same way.
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The long shadows over Roosevelt and the Sierra Anchas provided a pleasant view on the hike out, and the parking lot was still empty when we returned. We didn't see anyone on the trails all day, and not much in the way of interesting wildlife...lots of bear scat and quite a few Steller's jays, but that was it. Before driving back to Phoenix, we detoured south to the bridge overlook near Inspiration Point. Pleasant hike and perfect weather, and it was great catching up with ishamod again. |
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. I stated that I really didn't want to hike back down that steep climb to where we were to look for him if he was on he way back to the TH anyway, and Wally likes uphills anyway. Joe threw in that maybe we passed a ruin that Andy was checking out. After Joe ran a quarter mile back down the trail, I took my phone out of airplane mode and got in contact with Andy. He did take the wrong turn but figured it out and was on his way towards us. At that point we continued on in confidence that we were not in fact leaving him for dead. He caught with me and Joe a half mile from the Lone Pine TH, Wally was already taking a nap waiting for us there. 
