Lost Dutchman State Park

Our hiking shoes came out today as we did our toughest hike since the Black Canyon in 2008, we didn’t realize that when we drove out to Lost Dutchman as we did not have a trail map for the park. We parked at the first parking lot we came to after entering the park and took out the map; based on the description we chose to walk the Treasure Loop Trail to Jacob’s Crosscut Trail and then head up the draw on the Siphon Draw Trail. We decided to go as far up the draw as we were comfortable with and then turn around, we expected about a 4 mile round trip.

 

The mountain as seen from our parking spot, the Siphon Draw Trail goes up the valley to the left of center.

 

The desert was very green, Sandy remarked that it looks like a golf course.

 

The green plants were also flowering with tiny white blossoms.

 

We start climbing.

Our route was not to bad until we turned onto the Siphon Draw where the trail started climbing and never let up. We climbed slowly and moved aside as a number of others (probably half our age), passed us by; we met up with a couple that was resting and climbed with them to the point where we turned around.

 

We took a break along the trail.

 

Sandy kept her thoughts to herself as she look up our route.

 

The trail was steep in places and pretty rugged but John maintained his pace which allowed the others to stop and rest while they waited for him to catch up. John’s left ankle is fused and the lack of that flex affects climbing as he has limited push off with that leg; descending steep slopes is harder as he can’t point that foot down so stepping onto just the heel of his boot on a steep slippery slope can be tricky, normally he tries to step down pigeon toed so he has the side of his foot to hold him.

 

John lags behind as we approached the smooth rock slope.

 

This surface was smooth enough to be very slippery if your hiking boot was wet.

 

We climbed up to a point where we were walking on a smooth bare rock surface, Sandy felt she had reached as far as she cared to go but John thought he would climb a little higher and see what was around the next corner. When John reached the top of the polished rock he looked up and about thirty feet above him sat a nice white haired lady who probably had twenty or so years on him, John decided to climb another 30 feet to talk with her. Turns out she was hiking with the group from Valle del Oro and her group had moved on up the mountain a little faster than she cared to go so she was waiting for them to return; wow, all the way down John kept looking over his shoulder waiting for that group to come thundering by.

 

Sandy (in red), waited while John walked to the top of the slippery slope. When John was picking his way down two young men came running up this slope, oh those were the days.

 

The view from where we turned around.

 

Didn’t come near the top.

 

Some of those that continued on climbed to the top of the  flat iron, the peak at the center of this image.

 

Although the majority of this hike was on Tonto National Forest Land we accessed the trails from Lost Dutchman State Park, unfortunately Lost Dutchman is set to close due to budget problems which may make it difficult to get to these trails. We had a nice climb today and burned some calories along the way so tonight after checking our budget we went out for Pizza.