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| Hiking | 17.45 Miles |
2,378 AEG |
| | Hiking | 17.45 Miles | 9 Hrs | | 1.94 mph |
| 2,378 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | First of all this is an extremely long hike from Rustler park. If you have a 4x4 vehicle and you're willing to drive to the end of FSR 42-D, you can knock off a total of maybe 3 miles from the round-trip distance. It is a rocky rugged road and you will need to be a skilled driver.
We arrived at the trailhead just before 9 am and starting on the Long Park trail which headed over toward the Crest trail #270. This was our first time on this spur trail and I felt that it was maintained very well.
This spur trail took us to a 5-way junction of trails North of Flys peak. One of the trails (Flys peak #337) heads to Flys peak. Another trail called Centella trail #334 heads to Centella point, and the other 2 trails were the Crest trail #270. From this point, we continued along the Crest trail #270 toward Chiricahua peak. This peak was only 3.5 miles from our trailhead. When we hiked it previously from Rustler campground, it was definitely a longer distance.
We continue on the Crest trail #270 around the West side of Flys peak. We saw the Saulsbury trail junction and passed it. We were on the Saulsbury trail the previous day on the way to Little Baldy. From here we continued and arrived at Round park. This was a grassy meadow area. We saw a few irises here but not as many as the previous year probably due to the lack of rain in the area. The irises we did see were very nice looking. It's one of the most exotic flowers around this area. In this area we saw trail junctions for Bear Wallow, the trail heading up the South side of Flys peak, and a trail to Booger spring.
From here, we continued around the East side of Ward peak, sometimes called Flys South. When we got to the South side of Ward peak we reached an area called Cima Park. There was a trail junction here and the Greenhouse trail #248 headed East from here. Someday I want to see the cabin which is on this trail. No time to do that today, though.
We continued South past Anita peak and Anita park and arrived at Junction saddle, just North of Chiricahua peak. From our starting point, we hiked about 3.2 miles to get here. I decided to drop 1 of my 3 half gallon containers of water here to lighten the load a little. I would pick this up on the way back. At the junction, I turned left and followed the main branch of the Crest trail #270 to the East of Chiricahua peak.
Our next point of interest was Eagle spring. We reached the sign after a total of 4.45 miles of hiking. There was a 20 or 30 foot trail leading down to a concrete cistern. There was water inside but it had a lot of algae on top. Probably OK to filter from, but not the best source. We continued around 0.4 miles to Juniper spring. There was a circular hole in a rock and a fair amount of water inside. This was probably a slightly better water source than Eagle spring. From our starting point, Eagle spring was slightly more than halfway to Sentinel peak.
We continued along the well-maintained trail. Based on other trip reports I was worried that the trail would deteriorate a few miles from Sentinel peak, but we discovered that the trail was in great shape all the way to the saddle West of Finnicum peak.
When we got to the South side of 9238 it was already past Noon so we decided to stop to take our lunch from here. We found a log on the side of the trail that was a great place to sit down. Looking SE we could see Finnicum and Sentinel. Sentinel peak has some aspen trees and pines on top, while Finnicum peak is mostly bare.
After lunch we continued toward the 2 peaks. One the saddle West of Finnicum peak, we saw the junction with the South Fork trail #243 which headed East. From here, we knew we had 1 mile to go to get to Sentinel peak.
We decided to hike Finnicum peak first because it looked rather easy and wasn't far out of the way. There wasn't a trail going up to Finnicum, but we really didn't need one. We just walked up the ridgeline and it wasn't too steep. At the top we found a rock pile with a registry inside. The paper wasn't in great shape but I was able to get photos of all of the registry entries. We got our photos and we were ready to head over to Sentinel peak after that. We hiked down the South of Finnicum peak. At the saddle, we found a trail and were surprised that it was in decent shape and it led us all the way up to Sentinel peak. Near the top we saw a wooden sign that was laying on the ground. We stood the sign up and placed it into the rock pile where we believed it fell from.
We continued and reached the summit. At the summit, we saw a small concrete foundation which must have been the base of a fire lookout tower. There was a registry here but it was in bad condition. The container seemed to have glue in it, but we figured what appeared to be glue was probably melted rubber that was used to seal. Luckily I had a small plastic jar, but the jar was very small and the registry needed to be rolled up and sort of 'jammed' into it. I was afraid that the registry might get stuck inside the jar, so I put a small rock at the bottom of the jar to prevent that from happening. *If someone hikes this peak, it would be great to add a larger sized jar. Go ahead and take the smaller jar and use it for another peak with a smaller registry. I put a metal can over the jar and placed a pile of rocks around it. This should completely protect the paper from the sun or rain.
Near the summit was a metal sign that had an engraving stating 'In memory to Sentinel Lookout 1930 - 1972 U.S.F.S.'. We took our photos and summit video. Before heading out, I walked to the South side of the peak to look over the rocks at the views. By the time we left the summit, it was already after 3 pm. We took the same trail down to the saddle North of Sentinel peak. From here we found a faint trail leading around the West side of Finnicum. This trail started out fine, but after a few minutes we lost the trail. The side of the mountain was very steep and we ended up side hilling for 15 or 20 minutes. Eventually, as we got most of the way around Finnicum, we found a section of trail above us which we took all the way back to the saddle West of Finnicum. From this point, we knew it was all good trail. Our goal was to get back to the trailhead before dark but if we didn't that was OK too. We both had headlamps. When I got to Juniper spring, I wanted to take a break but there was little shade here. I kept going and met up with Brian who was ahead of me, near a tree on the way to junction saddle. We took about a 30 minute break here. We were probably 1/2 mile from where we dropped our water bottles, at Junction saddle. I still had slightly less than a quart left, so I paced myself well. When we got to Junction saddle, we took a short break again, and after that headed North on the Crest trail. We finally made it back to the trailhead around 8:15 pm.
It was an exhausting day and we made it. This was one of the longer hikes I've done in recent times, but the AEG is relatively low for such a long distance. If you attempt this hike, make sure you bring enough water. I brought 1.5 gallons and drank a little more than 1 gallon during the entire hike, not including what I drank for breakfast at the campsite and after getting back to the campsite. It was a windy day with cloud cover. If there was more sun exposure, I'm sure I would have drank 50% more water on such a long hike.
Stats:
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Distance (round trip): 17.45 miles
AEG: 2,378 feet
Strava moving time: 8 hrs even
Strava elapsed time: 11 hrs 29 mins
Driving directions:
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Follow Google to Rustler Park Campground
1192 W Saddle View Rd, Douglas, AZ 85607
If you have a 4x4 vehicle you can continue on FSR 42-D for 1 mile to just below Bootlegger saddle or 1.5 miles to the end of the road where there's a private dispersed camping area. This whole area is called Long Park. There is a nice trail from this area that connects to Crest Trail #270, which is unofficially called the Long Park spur trail. |
| _____________________
Michael Williams
IT Professional
Rocky Point Vacation Rentals
Ocean Front Condo in Rocky Point, Sonora, Mexico
www.beachfrontmexico.us
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