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| Hiking | 8.75 Miles |
1,545 AEG |
| | Hiking | 8.75 Miles | 6 Hrs 11 Mns | | 2.07 mph |
| 1,545 ft AEG | 1 Hour 57 Mns Break | 25 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | Another patented CannondaleKid-style hike with all the ingredients... awesome panoramas, fresh clean air, off-trail wandering, boulder-hopping, expected natural beauty, unexpected treat, ancient history, added adventure and of course the slog back to the car.
Let's take it in order...
1. Awesome panor... WHAM! Body Slam! Oooof! ](https://hikearizona.com/dex2/images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall") Knees, palms heels and chest are all screaming in protest!  What the he..? Move along people... nothing to see here... just another one of Mark's patented full-frontal crash-and-burns within minutes of the Broadway TH. Let's take a moment for damage inventory:
Knees... no abrasions, just pain
Palm heels... nice abrasions and plenty of pain, feels like I cracked a bone in my right hand (it's happened before so that's from experience)
Chest... feels like I took a punch from Joe Louis. While the camera bag on my chest absorbed some of the blow, it concentrated it in one place.
Camera... oh no! Did I break another one this year? Whew! Only an abrasion across the lens cap, probably from the zipper scraping hard against it.
Head... hmmm, feels better now, the attendant pain elsewhere is enough to overshadow the migraine I was fighting
Enough of the drama let's get back in order...
2. Awesome panorama! The front of the Superstitions up-close-and-personal never ceases to arouse the awe of our Creator in me!
3. Clean, fresh air! Absolutely wonderful! So crisp and clear after the cleansing of the prior days of rain that somehow all the pain faded into the background and nothing could spoil our hike now.
4. Off-trail wandering! The Goldmine Trail wandered south-eastward toward the Hog Canyon TH but we decided to shoot a bee-line for the drainage up Hog Canyon and save .3 mile by cutting the corner. The terrain was pretty open so there was little issue with the path we chose. Plenty of sign of javelina and deer but none were observed.
5. Boulder-hopping! Once in the drainage this became the mode of transportation. Might seem like too much to some folks, but after remembering our White Canyon adventures of late it was like a walk-in-the-park.
6. Expected natural beauty! Although in full boulder-hopping mode, the beauty we had heard about and thus expected did not fail to impress. All the various types of rock and shapes of the formations made this hike a winner and we weren't even halfway through it.
7. Unexpected treat! Along the wash we found a few small puddles of water here and there so we didn't expect to see much of anything at the falls. But nearing the turn toward the expected dry-falls we heard water flowing and moments later came the very unexpected treat, the waterfalls were flowing!  What a bonus, we came for the petroglyphs and found running falls, four of them! This was the time for shooting video more than still shots, which I proceeded to do.
Check it out: http://www.changephoenix.com/11/V2011-12-16HogCanyonFalls.html
8. Ancient history! Ah yes, the petroglyphs! Teased by mnlumberjack with just one petroglyph photo, we wanted more, which meant climbing above the falls, not something Tracey was very enthused about.  As I was contemplating how best to encourage her to push her limits and climb up with me, all of a sudden she is off and climbing ahead of me. Taken by surprise it took me a few moments to take off in hot pursuit. Wow, that was easy! But Tracey took one glance back down and there was no way she would go back that route.  Ahh, but that was quickly lost in our excitement of the petroglyphs. And not just one or two but many, almost every direction we turned. Now this is what we came for. We both took numerous photos of the glyphs and the falls... more than enough for one photoset, but reluctantly that's all I posted.
9. Added adventure! Ok, now that Tracey didn't want to drop back down around the falls, what shall we do. We continued up above the uppermost falls and a few more pools higher and back from the falls to a saddle where we could view both up the Hog Canyon drainage as well as back down on the area we were boulder-hopping on the way up. Not having followed Snakemarks Kat's-Klaw Tour route we had yet to give much of a thought (and as yet no blood) to brush of the thorny variety, it seemed such a shame not to enjoy part of that experience. So we headed down the next drainage and into the maw of brush. But much as we expected to be eaten alive by thorns, we had very little trouble, only one time did I pull out my clippers to create an opening. After that it was simply up to careful route planning, selecting the best tactical route as we followd the overall strategic route.
10] Slog back to the car After the all the high (and low) adventures of the day now began the long walk back out. While there were new photo opportunities with the sun casting afternoon shadows, eventually the excitement waned enough that the aches and pains of the experience began their more vocal bid for attention. Still we continued all the way to the Hog Canyon TH that we had not seen then turned to follow the Goldmine Trail back to the Broadway TH.
So there you have it... one awesome hike, by the numbers with CannondaleKid, steps 1 through 10.
(And you wondered why it took me a few days to do the triplog... it took some R&R before my right hand felt good enough for this much typing... I lied, it still hurts like crazy) |
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