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Packing up and getting ready to go at the Miller Creek trailhead. |
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Pictures from the hike up to our campsite at Happy Valley Saddle || || \/ |
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Our campsite for the first night at Happy Valley Saddle |
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From the campsite, some of us packed up day-packs and continued up to Rincon Peak, which was another 2500 feet or so of climbing || || \/ |
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Giant rock pile at the top of Rincon Peak. I made sure to put one on it myself. |
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Colin, Catherine and me at the peak |
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Views from the top || || \/ |
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Oleg preparing a snack of crab and caviar at the summit |
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Heading off on the second morning |
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Looking back across the saddle at Rincon Peak |
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Our night 2 campsite, Manning Camp, was at 8000 feet, so we were heading through pine trees to get there |
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There was supposed to be water at Manning Camp, but the faucet we found wasn't working |
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Worried, we thought we might have to filter water from some of the horse troughs like this one. Note the dead squirrel. We decided to look around a bit more. |
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A sign said that there was a pond and a stream. I hiked down to the stream, which was dry, and then we went up to the pond, which was less than appetizing. |
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Just down from the pond, fortunately, was a series of rock pools that were fairly clean. |
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With the aid of a few portable water filters, we were all set with water for the rest of the trip. It was a lot better than this water that we had on one of my Grand Canyon hikes. |
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An interesting spiny toad at our campsite |
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Getting ready to leave on the morning of day 3 |
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Pictures from the hike to our next campsite || || \/ |
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Tucson off in the distance || || \/ |
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Taking a break at the halfway point of day 3. It actually got cloudy and sprinkled a bit. We didn't see any lightning, but it started several fires in the Tucson area. |
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Day 3 campsite at Douglas Spring |
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Visitor to our day 3 campsite. I was the first to see him as we were lying/sitting around relaxing, and I belive the first thing I said was "holy shit Jason, there's a big fucking snake right by your feet!" Jason, channeling instincts honed by 3 million years of evolution, instantly sprang away from it. It's an Arizona Black Rattlesnake (its actual official name) and was about 3-4 feet long. |
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The snake slowly wandered through the campsite as we watched it, eventually slithering off through a wash and into some brush || || \/ |
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Anti-snake precautions |
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What I saw when we woke up at 4 am to begin our hike out. We were at low elevation and would be hiking even lower, so beating the heat was important. The bright 'star' towards the left is Venus |
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Sunrise |
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Pictures from the hike out || || \/ |
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The end! |
