Today's hike was along the Arizona Trail heading south on Box Camp Road to Greaterville Road in the Santa Rita foothills. Ample parking was right off Box Camp Road. The trail followed an old mining trail for the first two miles before branching off and going along a ridge as a single track.
I took Sadie and Zeke and drove in my van to the trailhead, where others from the hiking club were getting ready to hike the trail south. This was a large group: SteveA, SteveS, Rod, Paul, Mel, Jody, PatS, JimA, MaryAnne, ColeM. I am glad I managed to meet them early, as the route SteveA took included some shortcuts that I otherwise would not have figured out. The terrain was rolling hills and we gained 1063 feet in elevation as we hiked between 5135' to 5750'. This would have been a lovely hike after a rain, allowing water to run off rocky canyons. Instead, it was a dry hike with little wildflowers and little shade at first.
Weather today was perfect for hiking, too. While it was a mere 49F at the start, it did warm up and stayed mostly sunny for most of this hike. In the end, 4:30 hours later, it had warmed up to only 59F with a heavy overcast. I wore a base layer shirt under my hiking blouse, and a thin cotton jacket over that.
I started out with the slower people at first but then switched to the faster group, maintaining my distance from the others so that the dogs wouldn't be in the way. There was no running water today and I had to stop to give the dogs theirs, sitting in the shade of an oak tree overlooking the Santa Rita foothills. The group took its lunch break at the 3.7 mile mark, on a high point that revealed remnants of an old fire that had burned the older trees. This area has recovered well since.
This area at one time saw a lot of traffic but today we were the only ones. SteveA was the official hike leader and he decided to make this hike a loop hike rather than an out-and-back. I prefer loop hikes myself, even though out-and-back hikes offer a different viewpoint from the same landscape and one often sees twice as much.
It took us 4.3 miles to reach Greaterville Road (FSR 165). From here the AZT turns left (east) but we turned right (west) along the well-graded road at a stock pond which both dogs took advantage of. There were several mining claims staked along the road. An ATVer sped by and waved at us; he was the only person we came across.
Now off the official AZT, we were in ATV heaven. Had we stayed on the AZT we would have reached Kentucky Camp in four more miles, so now I have a gap I must fulfill. The roads in all directions showed recent evidence of ATVs and were roads, not trails. Some intersections were not marked at all, but my GPS app showed us eventually paralleling the AZT to the west. Mount Wrightson came into full view. This was very pretty terrain, but again the trees showed stress from drought. It's hard to believe that despite our winter rains, that the trees everywhere look drought-stricken.
At the 5.5-mile mark we went back north on FSR 229. A sign at the intersection said "Locked Gate Ahead" but that gate was nothing more than a cattle gate that wasn't even locked. Melendez Pass was to our northeast; we could see a cluster of microwave dishes to our west. The gate was easily traversed. The road was more rutted here as it hugged a narrow canyon and a stream. This area would have been very lush after some rain, but today all the drainages were dry. The dogs were panting for more water. There was no water at the Ezenburg tank, but the dogs did find a flooded mine shaft with stagnant water they luckily were too afraid to jump into. There was a large running water tank farther north with a smaller cattle tank that I helped Zeke jump into. While the mines in this canyon were all abandoned, the use of cattle was everywhere. FSR229 was very scenic, but I was also glad to see us back at the AZT at the 7.8-mile mark. By the time we got back to our vehicles, I was feeling drained! The dogs were tired, too, and both stretched out in the back and didn't say a word all the way home.
I stopped at Safeway to get them some raw meats. I stopped at Culver's for a cheeseburger platter and more custard. I'm really liking some of their daily flavors and right now I'm on a "Just Drummy" obsession: vanilla custard with swirls of chocolate syrup, peanuts and broken sugar wafers.
The other dogs never bothered me for their own hike around Oak Estates. I'll leave that for tomorrow. Weather will start warming up again.
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