In search of the magnificent Quartz...
Quartz Peak Trail is a 6 mile out and back trail with 2500ft elevation gain. It's located in the "mysterious" Estrella Mountains Southwest of Phoenix. The journey to the trailhead involved a 10 mile bone-rattling journey across a very rough dirt road. Not a well used area.
It's only 14 miles as the crow flies from Parental Home, Tukee, to the trailhead but it took us about 90 minutes to get there. Thank goodess we had Boompa's V8 Jeep Cherokee at our disposal.
There was a strange man cleaning his gun in the parking lot which freaked me the hell out. Luckily we were spared. Arizona.
At this point we were referring to the summit in the distance as "Bird Shit Peak".
The precious Quartz...shimmering in the distance...
The trail was pretty distinct up until the last half mile or so when it became more of an over-bolder scramble. It was fun but we were staying vigilant with regards to rattlesnakes and other poisonous critters. Our experience driving in showed us an emergency situation would only be addressable via helivac.
Made it!
Overwhelmed by all the Quartz.
Desert for dayysss.
South Mountain looks tiny.
Picture taking / log booking (Yes, I wrote "The precious Quartz! It's all ours!").
We didn't have a ton of time as we were racing against the clock (hoping to get through the worst of the dirt road before nightfall) but still snapped some decent pics.
The sun decided to come out for a few brief moments...illuminating our riches.
& then it was time to journey down.
Off the mountain.
We didn't really meet our goal of driving the worst of the dirt road with the sun out...but we made it out nonetheless.
Stats.
All hail the indestructible jeep!
0 comments:
Post a Comment