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| Sugar Loaf Mtn Loop - Spur Cross, AZ | | -
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| | Sugar Loaf Mtn Loop - Spur Cross, AZ | | | |
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Sugar Loaf Mtn Loop - Spur Cross, AZ
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| Hiking | 8.10 Miles |
1,920 AEG |
| | Hiking | 8.10 Miles | | | |
| 1,920 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no linked trail guides |
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| no partners | | Took my daughter's father-in-law, Tom, for a hike out at Spur Cross Park in Cave Creek Canyon. He's one of those rain soaked Oregonians but he knows what to expect when hiking in the desert with me - long pants and thorn proof hiking shoes. But he didn't bring quite enough water. 
I decided to revisit an old airplane wreck near the saddle between Black Mesa and Sugar Loaf Mtn in the Tonto NF. We started from the Spur Cross trailhead at about 7:30 am and made good time up to Peterson Spring where the off trail hike up to the wreck location begins. Some of the Saguaro and Ocotillo were blooming. The watering trough at Peterson spring was full with a slow drip coming out of the pipe. We traversed along the east side of the wash that goes up to the saddle staying up high where it's not as steep or as brushy. After coming to the fence we followed it west for a few hundred feet until coming to a broken section where it was easy to cross and started down into the ravine along the north side of the saddle. By now we could see pieces of the plane wreckage. Both wings, a small piece of the tail end of the fuselage and the frame which has the motor mounts and front nose gear are in the bottom of the ravine. The actual crash site is near the crest of the ridge on the north side of the ravine above the wreckage. That's where we found smaller pieces of the wreckage and small puddles of melted aluminum on boulders where the actual crash site had been. The plane had burst into flames on impact. The last time I visited this site one of the wings was still up at the crash site. Evidently someone has decided the more visible larger pieces of the wreckage should be in the bottom of the ravine. For more details on the wreck and newspaper articles see my posting for my first hike to the wreck. http://hikearizona.com/photoset=18878
After poking around the wreck for a while we decided to break for lunch before heading back. That's when I came up with the idea to make a loop out of the hike by heading straight down hill from the wreck site towards the bottom of Cave Creek Canyon on the north side of Sugar Loaf Mtn. We headed east down the ridge through a beautiful patch of blooming prickly pear. The buds are pink on the outside just before opening up and become a bright yellow flower when they bloom. The brush started to get thick as we neared the bottom of the canyon so we cut through an old mining area where we could connect with the mining road to take us to the canyon bottom. Tom was down to his last gulp of water and we had 2.5 miles left to go but there was some clear fresh spring water running in the creek. Another chance to use my new Sawyer mini-filter. From there we made good time walking down the road/trail to the Spur Cross trailhead except for yakking with a couple of other hikers. We encountered a "cowboy" taking a group of tourists for horseback rides coming up the trail. I overheard him tell the group that they were approaching a pair of North American Hikers but don't worry, they're non-venomous. I guess there wasn't much in the way of wildlife to show them in the middle of the afternoon. |
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