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| Hiking | 14.96 Miles |
3,143 AEG |
| | Hiking | 14.96 Miles | 10 Hrs 15 Mns | | 1.76 mph |
| 3,143 ft AEG | 1 Hour 45 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | Headed out at 6a for a 7a start. It was nice and cool with a bit of wind. After paying our $3, we were off! We saw the Rangers just getting things set up.
We opted to take the shortcut to shave off a mile. Not sure if this area is closed? The posted sign seems to point to yes, but if you took the shortcut going towards the parking lot, you would never see the closed sign, only a cairn marking the start of the trail from Cottonwood trail 247. From the Spur Cross trail/road, you turn right following the signage for mariposa hill.
The shortcut follows the park boundary fence line for quite a while. There are good views of the mansion houses and their roads during the climb up the ridge. The trail is mainly well defined with only a few sections that are faint. After the shortcut lets out onto Cottonwood trail 247, it is not too far until the gate and junction with skull mesa 248. At the beginning, there seems to be multiple trails, but after a while they all merge, and up to the Mesa you steeply go. The trail is good, but I was definitely happy to be heading onto the flat ground of skull mesa. We had a quick snack break and headed off across the mesa through dry grass, rocks, and prickly pear. The game trails are much appreciated. I was thinking how fast and pleasant this trip would be on an actual trail, ha! Of course then there might be hordes of people. We made it across the Mesa without incident and started over to the ruins. Everything was relatively uneventful except for a 15 ft long section of exposure which I didn't love while passing the last mound on the left (southeast) side before the ruins. This appeared the best way to go, but 5-inch wide trails plus dropoffs are not my fave. After the sketchy section, we enjoyed the ruins.
I was hoping for us to do a loop with Cave Creek trail 4 after coming down from the ruins. Well. A lot of triplogs go up/down by the ruins. These people are part mountain goat and FAR more fearless than me. I was studying the way down based on the route I downloaded. And any way I looked at it, it looked frightening and steep! Apparently, I am not part mountain goat!  It just looked like a scary cliff to me. We decided to head back the way we came. I had really wanted to make that loop, but we just couldn't find a way down that we were comfortable traversing. I was looking forward to being on trail after the scary down, but instead it was back across skull mesa and down down down back to the car. We passed very few hikers all day. We saw no one during most of the day, only a few people within a quarter mile of the parking lot plus one solo hiker headed up to the top of skull mesa as we headed down.
I was mighty disappointed not to have seen a single Petroglyph on skull mesa. I kept looking to no avail!! I will have to research more for next time.
It was an adventure on a new trail! A beautiful day to be out exploring!   |
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