Alum Canyon

Our final day in the Gila Forest. We traveled back to a viewpoint we had stopped at on our way here because we had seen there was a trail head there. We knew nothing about the trail, so planned on just taking it as far as we felt like.

It was a bit different because the first part of the hike was all a descent, whereas most hikes ascend at the first. We knew that this meant that we had to ascend about 1000 feet in 1 1/4 miles in the heat of the day, but oh well.

Here is a trip report that gives the details: Alum Canyon

(note that the elevation gain changes a bit when one disables the elevation correction.  Note also that, as is typical with both my hiking and biking Garmins, elevation gain does not equal elevation loss, even though we always start and stop in the same exact location;  I basically take an average of all of these figures to arrive at what I believe to be the best estimate of elevation gain.  It is probably accurate to within 50 feet or so, which is pretty good.  Usually it is within a few feet of elevation gains provided on the occasional trail map that reports elevation gains of hikes, which makes us feel confident in what we estimate when this information is not provided by trail maps.)
 
One can see where the river goes by following the lighter shade of green in the trees:








Then we walked both ways along the river trail, until the trail dictated a crossing. We decided we were done with river crossings. At the first crossing there were three guys doing something, but we couldn't tell what, one of whom couldn't stop trying to convince us to cross there. I didn't like him, as he was trying too hard, almost to the point of taunting me into doing it. Vicky said later that it felt like a Deliverance moment.













See the top of the hill? That is where we were heading.


Stopping to look at the Gila River on our ascent.



4 1/2 miles with 1100 foot elevation gain today. Felt just right, and was very pretty.