Day: 011
Date: Friday, 17 May 2024
Start: Silver City
Finish: Moore Canyon
Daily Kilometres: 31.0
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 303.3
Weather: Mild early then very warm and sunny.
Accommodation: Tent
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Egg & sausage McMuffins, milkshakes
Lunch: Trail mix
Dinner: Rehydrated meals
Aches: Dave - the usual niggles; Julie - knee still a bit sore after her fall yesterday, but getting better.
Highlight: The rock gardens in mid-afternoon, after a long climb, were spectacular. Orange pillars and boulders on a high and wide ledge with the mountains as a backdrop.
Lowlight: Dave stumbled and fell early in the afternoon but didn't do any real damage. When he got back up, we checked around on the ground to make sure nothing had come out of his pack and didn't see anything so continued on. Five to ten minutes later, Dave asked Julie to check his water bottles, carried in the side pockets of our rucksacks, and she discovered that a full one was missing. We stopped and Julie went back and luckily found it. Being full, it had rolled some distance down the slope after becoming dislodged when Dave fell.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We woke at 6am, packed and then Julie bought some breakfast from McDonalds across the road which we ate in our room before leaving around 7:20am.
Initially, we had to walk back towards town on a busy Friday morning before linking up with the road we were to follow northwards out of town. We knew we would be road walking for a while, but it was interesting passing through the outskirts of town - some very wealthy-looking houses and some not so much.
After two hours of walking we entered the Gila National Forest and stopped at a picnic area for our morning break. It was a lovely spot amidst the pines and there were a few people about.
From there we began to leave civilization behind and, apart from a mountain biker and one hiker, we didn't see anyone else all day. The forest was thicker and sometimes our path was shaded, very welcome on a very warm day.
After a long descent, we reached the flowing Bear Creek, where it passed through a beautiful valley and then followed Sycamore Creek on lovely single-track trail up through Sycamore Canyon.
After the single track, some 4WD tracks, with lots of loose rocks on the ascents and descents, was less welcome but, eventually, brought us out into some awesome rock gardens (see above).
The last part of the day was spent following rock cairns across rocky shelves with some great views and the occasional spring. We loaded up with water at one of these at 4:30pm and, having gone further than expected today, found a nice campsite at 5pm and had an early night.
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