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| Hiking | 16.75 Miles |
2,856 AEG |
| | Hiking | 16.75 Miles | 10 Hrs 41 Mns | | 1.75 mph |
| 2,856 ft AEG | 1 Hour 8 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | Wow I can't believe I finally made it out to this hike! Only 5 more AZ 20-20 Challenge hikes left 
The drive out to the TH was an adventure all in it's own. We took a road that dead ended, a service road that we were rock crawling up through thick forest, and then finally the correct road (which was fairly smooth & easy compared to the others but still a HC road). No signs for roads so I'm posting a pic of a map that I drew on the roads we took to get to the Schmutz Spring TH & hopefully it will help someone. Nice little camp area at the TH. There was a lovely group there already when we arrived who were hiking to Shaman's Gallery the next day. Also two other vehicles parked but we didn't see the drivers around for the two nights we were there.
The trail starts with some steep gravely sections and quickly drops you on to a bench of land covered in desert plants where the trail often disappears. This continues for a while and gradually turns into esplanade. It is rarely full esplanade along the trail. There are sections of all rock but much of the hike is rock and vegetation/soil. Lots of cryptobiotic soil! There are cairns marking most of the trail but they are much more visible in the esplanade section. The trail winds up and down & up & down though massive esplanade drainages (canyons in canyons in canyons!). It is incredible. I could explore this area for the rest of my life and always find something new. We weren't able to spend much time exploring though so I soaked as much of it in as possible as we continued moving. The temps were perfect in the morning with cloud cover but the sun really beat us down in the afternoon when it was clear skies. There was water in Cottonwood Canyon but we didn't chance refilling based on what I had read about it being highly mineralized. Made it to Dome Pocket Canyon and the trail seemed to disappear. The only crossing I saw was across a steep sloping lip of rock covered in gravel. Looking at the previous route on here it looked like they went up a bit. We were getting pretty sun-baked at that point anyway so it was the perfect turn around spot. The Dome is so massive in the distance & I would love to come out here again & hike out to it.
We camped at the Schmutz Spring TH again after hiking all day & then drove out to Tuweep Campground & Toroweap Overlook the next day (got a NPS permit ahead of time for both Schmutz Spring TH camping & Tuweep Campground). Most incredible campground ever! We hiked part of the Tuckup Trail from the campground & it is all esplanade from the west side. It was great to be hiking the same trail but in sweatpants & sandals & very minimal effort since the trail starts from in the canyon on the west end. It was really really beautiful on this end and immediately gave me the itch to hike all of Tuckup someday (hopefully soon). |
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Wildflowers Observation Isolated
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