Date: November 5, 2024 • Elevation: 3,263 feet • Prominence: 343 feet • Distance: 4.5 miles • Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes • Gain: 727 feet • Conditions: Sunny, clear and pleasant

Arizona • Main • PB • LoJ

This peak lies in the north part of the Saguaro National Park's West Unit. It rises less than a mile west of Peak 3022 "Gila Monster Mine Peak", a few miles north of Wasson Peak and south of Safford Peak. Also, Picture Rocks Peak rises about a mile to the north. The peak has no official name and does not really stand out much, being surrounded by much higher peaks. The Prophecy Wash Trail leads to its southern tip, and for informal purposes here, I call it by that name.

I was on my usual Tuesday Tempe drive. I have been stopping in Tucson to hike a peak each time I pass through. I have perhaps two hours at most if I want to be sure I get into Tempe on time. This peak is a lot like the other smallish bumps in the Tucson Range: easy to get to via roads or trails, and looking like something I could do without too much hassle.

I left Bisbee at 7:15 a.m. and was in Tucson about two hours later, traffic being tolerable, no crashes or police situations to slow things down. The day was very cool in Bisbee when I left, but warmed, so to speak, into the 50s when I was in Tucson. The day was cloudless and dry, a beautiful mid-autumn morning.

I exited the interstate at Ina Road, heading west. It morphs into Picture Rocks Road and passes through the hills. A couple miles later, where it makes a sharp bend at the old Golden Gate Road junction, I parked in a clearing about a hundred feet off the road. I was about two miles north of the peak.

Golden Gate Road no longer is open to traffic but it is open to hikers and bikers. These days, it serves as a wide trail. I went light, just a buttpack, and started walking south. About a half mile later, I came to the Prophecy Wash Trail junction, which angles southeast. The peak itself was visible in the distance, the sun behind it for now.

The Prophecy Wash Trail is not regularly trod upon and wasn't that obvious at times. Within minutes, it fed me onto a sandy arroyo, this being the actual Prophecy Wash. I just followed footprints in the coarse sand.

I followed the wash a few hundred yards with the peak in the distance, but then the wash bent more south and I was unsure if I should stay on it (I had no map). I decided to bail out of the wash and go cross-country on a straight line toward the peak, which by now was less than a mile away.

The off trail hiking was easy. The terrain is open, the brush and cactus spread out nicely. In about twenty minutes I was on the lower slopes of the peak. I had intended to angle to the pass to the peak's south but these slopes looked tolerable so I stayed on them.

The uphill climbing got steep, but the rocks and terrain still behaved. Brush was never too thick and the rocks stayed in their places, most of the time. This put me onto the peak's southwestern ridge.

I turned left and started uphill toward a summit, which I knew was a false summit. Once at it, I saw a pointed summit up ahead. I thought this may be the actual top but it wasn't. However, once at it, the true summit was just a few dozen yards ahead. The ridge was rocky at times, needing hands for balance in a couple spots.

I arrived onto the top about 45 minutes after starting, a one-way hike of about two miles. The top is open with low rocks. I found a register and signed in, removing some rotted papers and some extraneous sheets that were just clogging up the bottle. The register in it is still good with enough pages in it to last another hundred years.

Views were excellent in the dry air and cloudless skies. I snapped a few images and took a five minute break on a nice sitting rock. It was cool but not cold, about 60° by now. There was no breeze. Peak 3022 "Gila Monster Mine Peak" rises nearby and most people combine that peak with this one and a few others for a big loop hike. I don't have that kind of time so I am just picking these off one by one.

For the descent, I followed a different ridge, one to the east of the one I ascended. This fed me down to the saddle and onto the trail, which is where I should have been in the first place. Hiking out, the trail dumps back into the wash, so the wash itself is the trail for the better part of a mile.

The outbound hike took a little longer, about a half-mile longer, but I made good time and was back to my car a little before 11 a.m.. The hike had taken me a little under two hours. I felt good and pleased with the result. I changed into driving clothes and headed in toward Phoenix.

So far I have been lucky in that on these drives, there hasn't been some massive pile-up or closure of the interstate. But today, something was going on at Riggs Road. I was still south a few miles. Traffic was slowing and I could see it was stopped ahead. The electronic signs said there was a stoppage at Riggs Road.

Fortunately, this was right as I was at the AZ-587 exit, a connector route that crosses the Gila River Reservation and hooks up with AZ-87 at the Hunt Highway at the south end of Chandler. I don't like this route because it's nothing but stoplights, but today, it was a better bet than staying put on the interstate. I got into Tempe about 1:30 p.m., time to shower up and get my head right for Vector Fields and Line Integrals.