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| Hiking | 7.45 Miles |
2,767 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.45 Miles | 7 Hrs 1 Min | | 1.06 mph |
| 2,767 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Lee Mountain has been on the radar for quite awhile. I thought today was the day to scratch this one off the list. But I made some poor decisions (my wife calls them rookie mistakes), that ultimately led to my not summiting  . The biggest mistake was no water. I typically “tank up” before the trail and that will get me through. Not the case today. Even with the cool temperatures, I was feeling parched as I neared the top. I feel the elevation combined with the rugged terrain took more out of me than is typical for this short of a hike. Plus, I didn’t carry any clippers with me. Once again, this is something that I seldom do, but would have been very beneficial on today’s hike. Onto the hike.
I got to the Jack Canyon TH around 6:30. Still dark out, but daylight was approaching and the Jack Canyon Trail is well defined so no headlight was needed. Several things surprised me about the JC Trail. One, was the number of use trails that interacted with it. Seems like the cows and the local community have made the canyon their playground. In addition, the cows and horses have gone a long way to shredding the trails. Much of the JC Trail was sand-like dirt. Very annoying. And despite the obvious usage, the catclaw was abundant and encroaching on the trail in some spots. I’ve hiked JC a few times in the past and I don’t remember any of these issues. 
I had downloaded the route for this hike and I was quite happy to turn off JC Trail, and all of its issues, and go cross country. The route up Lee Mountain is pretty obvious. As you are hiking JC a steep slope that seems to run right up the mountain draws closer. This is your ticket to the top. I turned off the JC Trail around 2.2 miles initially following one of the cow trails that led up the hill. The hill slope starts off as moderate and becomes a little more aggressive as you near the top. You’ll want to hang to the west of this slope to avoid a nasty patch of catclaw. Most likely you’ll come across a cow path that does a nice job of skirting it. (Careful, there are other cow paths that go right through the catclaw - it probably feels good on their hide. If you see the “claw” just veer west). At around 3.1 miles you reach a surprisingly nice vista that overlooks the south part of oak Creek Village. Enjoy the views and the flatness. The views don’t stop, but the flat ground does.  Shortly after the vista the trail will take you through “Lee’s Gate.” The “gate” is a set of 10 foot high poles, that at one time, may have been part of a gate. The posts are all that remain. As I was climbing this first hill, a second slope was taking shape just to the east. The trail crosses a dry wash to get to this second hill. This is where the serious climbing starts.
For maybe the first .1 miles there was a semblance of a trail, but it quickly became “chose your own adventure”.  I spent quite a bit of time looking up, trying to determine the best route. And despite that, a couple of times I had to back track because the brush (mainly prickly pear and shrub oak (or something like that)) got too thick. This is what got me in the end. I was probably within a 100 feet of the summit, when I hiked into a very steep, shrub infested slope. I was about 4 hours into the hike and I was going to have backtrack to find a friendlier avenue to the top. With water, and or clippers, I would have gone for it. But with a down climb and probably another 30 minutes before summiting, I decided to error on the side of caution.
The descent went better than I anticipated. It’s a pretty steep decline and ironically the shrubs that kept me from the top came in very handy (no pun intended) in providing added support. I looked back numerous times to see how close I came to the top. Oh so close!  It was a relief to get back to somewhat level ground. I did a combination cow path and JC Trail to get back to the TH.
Frustrating not making it to the top. Not sure if I’ll attempt this again in the future. If I do, I’ll come prepared and have a much better ascent route in mind. |
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