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| Hiking | 22.40 Miles |
3,590 AEG |
| | Hiking | 22.40 Miles | 6 Hrs 42 Mns | | 3.34 mph |
| 3,590 ft AEG | | 15 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | Drove up from Tempe at 4am on 3 hours of sleep with plans for a big day. Wound up doing Boynton, Fay, and Long Canyons all in one day before driving back home. Combined triplog here.
Boynton - full trail plus Subway - 7.89mi, 1296ft AEG, 2:10 elapsed
Reached Boynton trailhead at 7am about 30 min before sunrise. There were around a dozen cars there already, the lot about half full.
The beginning of the trail by the resort is quite "urban"  In the interest of time I planned to jog as much of the day as possible where the trails allowed (first ultra is in 1 month!), and managed to overtake everyone else on the trail and reach the subway first so I had it to myself briefly. The turnoff to the subway is almost impossible to miss with how much traffic goes there, but I did encounter a few people later in the full trail who had missed it.
The subway ramp was steeper than I expected. I shimmied up the right-most side. Coming back down I took a far easier path that you would find to the left of the ramp, through a branched archway, that takes you right up to the ruins alcove. I would recommend using that unless you want the challenge of the ramp. Coming back to the main trail, it was easy to take a wrong turn a couple times.
I knew there were other ruins in Boyntonn but ran out of time trying to internet sleuth all my destinations before driving up, and hoped they would be a little more obvious in Boynton. Unfortunately I didn't manage to spot the others, so I plan to go back eventually.
The rest of the trail was pleasant forest trail but not particularly dramatic. The strong smell of pine was wonderful. Upon reaching the end, I once again hoped to spy some ruins from the vantage point but had no luck. Upon returning to the trailhead it was a total zoo. I would guess 200 cars up and down the street spilling out of the lot, people getting dropped at the trailhead, etc. I didn't know yet that you could park along the street, and didn't want to risk getting shut out of Fay parking and losing any spot at all, so I left my car at Boynton and after a pit stop jogged down to Fay with just my tripod in hand.
Fay Canyon - 5.42mi, 909ft AEG, 2:08 elapsed
Fay began with wide, gentle dirt paths. The turnoff to the arch is again quite obvious. I worked my way up beneath the arch for some photo ops. The arch is separated from the cliff, but the gap is narrow so it's difficult to see that from most angles. For that reason I found the pictures better from underneath the arch than on top of it. To get to the top you'll aim to ascend the slope to the right/south of the arch. I followed a well defined path going up and to the right, but it had quite a lot of prickly pear, and a spot or two that narrowed and required some attention to footing. Coming down I tried an alternate path down a rock fall. It had no exposure and no cacti, just lots of large rocks which made a little slower going, so I'd rate the paths about equal. When I reached the bottom a stranger asked if I drove a particular car. They had been at Boynton and saw me go to my car and were hoping to get my spot when they saw me jog off, so they gave up and went to Fay instead. They were good sports about it.
I returned to the main trail and headed up to the fork. I knew ruins would be on the right fork, but didn't know exactly where. I went up the wash and some areas that looked fairly well traveled, and saw plenty of footprints. I went a ways up and down the right fork twice and still found nothing, but the foliage was dense and made it hard to see much. Skipping between rocks in the wash, I managed to roll my ankle fairly hard, but fortunately it didn't catch up with me until the drive home stiffened me up. Gave up looking for the Fay ruins, but at the next canyon received a tip from a traveler about where to find them when I go back.
Long Canyon - 9.12mi, 1385ft AEG, 3:24 elapsed
The whole area was crawling with people by this point, so I parked at the Mescal trailhead and didn't bother going down to check Long Canyon trailhead. Mescal was full, but I was lucky to get a spot from someone leaving. I jogged to the large nexus intersection and briefly took a wrong turn left which I believe heads to the Birthing Cave which I didn't really have interest in.
I reached "butt rock" a couple miles in, and continued up Long trail for now according to plan. After another mile or two, I reached my first point of interest. At a rocky wash with a large pine, there was a small but fairly clear path leading off to the left and switchbacking uphill. Here the path became quite steep, but the section is short. After just a few moments you should see the ladder come into view. Reaching a fork, I headed left first, to a nice Hohokam dwelling. This one may be have been restored at some point, but it was cool nonetheless. I worked my way back to the fork and up the other direction toward the ladder and another small ruin next to it. I shimmied into a small cave behind the ladder for some photo ops.
I did not intend to go further up Long trail, so I headed back to "butt rock" and turned east this time, following a well traveled path. I was glad to encounter a couple other travelers for this stretch which involved a couple small rocky scrambles. The goal is the opening between the ice cream cone rock on the left, and the 3 sisters formation to the right. The ruins were neat, I found it difficult to get a photo angle that showed them off well, they look better in person  Heading back down solo, I did have to search a few minutes to find the right spot back down over the long ledge.
I changed into clothes that didn't smell bad for the drive home and enjoyed the most overpriced but delicious quarter pounder with cheese in as long as I can remember. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
Route 
No wildlife, except for a few rabbits. Bird life was nice, though it was more the sounds than sightings. Bug irritation was minor, unless I stood still for any length of time. Didn’t see anyone until I got back to Deadman’s Pass. Definitely worth another trip!
. So that went better than I hoped. From there it was a cruise down the Long Canyon Trail where we saw quite a few more hikers; some inquired whether we had been to the Birthing Cave. 
We hit up Birthing cave first and it was a party in there. People posing on ledges, and others just seeming to want to sit around there all day. We didn’t stay very long, and passed hoardes of people heading in during our exit. This was the first time we assisted tourists in getting to the cave during this hike; at least these people were headed in the right direction though, lol! Next up was the ladder ruins and my recollection was that it was an easy, short, steep-ish climb to get there. So, either I forgot about the bushwhacking or it was way more overgrown than my last visit, ooops! This was my sister’s first time bushwhacking & my poor brother in law was wearing shorts & scratched up his legs pretty good. There was an area with a narrow ledge that was a bit intimidating for my sister, plus it was muddy so we didn’t have the best traction. With slow, careful steps and lots of assistance in the scrambling, they made it up to the ladder & dwellings. We ate lunch with beautiful views and had it to ourselves, yay! Getting back down was maybe even harder than going up, given the mud. When we finally made it back to the main trail with no falls, they were very relieved! On our way back, we passed two women who were looking for the birthing cave; they weren’t happy to learn they’d hiked close to 2 miles past the turning point. I assisted them in showing them how to use their alltrails map and we went on our merry way. After about 5 minutes, group number two was also looking for the birthing cave and had also gone way past the turn. After giving them instructions, we actually had to yell out to them twice more that they weren’t at the turnoff yet. Alas, they heard us yell, go to your right now and off they went! We kicked down some unnecessary cairns & raked over the “cave here” written in the dirt on our way out. I guess we tired out the family, since they didn’t want to hike anywhere else! Also, I need to better assess what I think are pregnancy friendly hikes, lol. 
Still a beautiful day in Sedona with my family!
