determination

The last time we were in the Mill Canyon area, we noticed that there were tons of multi-use trails out there - equestrian, hiking, MTBing, 4x4 - and I've wanted to get out there ever since.  On the recent long holiday weekend, we took an extra day and got out there around 10 a.m. on Friday.  There was one van parked over by the dinosaur tracksite, which we suspect belonged to the bike-jorers we met out on the trail, and one bikebacker just stirring in a tent.  It was a cool but beautiful morning: mostly clear skies and the sun would bring temperatures into the low 40s, with just a light, occasional breeze.  Cold in the shade, it was great hiking conditions.

Petrified wood mold - big stump

We had intended to do the 6.8 mil Tusher Tunnel loop, an equestrian trail clearly mapped at the campground kiosk.  We had difficulty finding the trail, however, and ended up walking down the dirt Mill Canyon road (passing the 3D 4x4 trail), which brought us to a small dinosaur bone/petrified wood intrepretive trail.  When the trail crossed the creek, we looked upstream and saw these magnificent red towers in the distance.  There was a trail leading through the wash and we didn't have any particular plan for the day, so we headed for those towers.

A Determination Tower

We walked out through the wash, the creek both frozen (in the shade) and free-flowing (in the sun) and the trail connected with the Monitor & Merrimac and Bartlett & Tusher trails.  To our left was the butte we MTBed around almost ten years ago; if we kept going straight, we'd arrive at Wipe-Out Hill.  Everything is connected, which was only confirmed when we started finding helpful maps of the area trails.  We'd just been winging it but now we could see what we were doing.

That sky tho' ...

Those red towers are called Determination Towers and as we walked around them, we could see a few pieces of climbing protection left behind.  There were no rock climbers that day, however, and we had them all to ourselves.  From there, the helpful map told us that we could make a loop out of it by continuing past the towers to Tusher Wash, then reconnecting with the Mill Canyon road.  This is all easy hiking this time of year, with the sand largely frozen.

Another tower view

After coming through Tusher Wash (where we found a sign for a dead-end box canyon that we bookmarked for a later trip), we veered off onto the 3D 4x4 road to avoid some range cattle that Milton was far too interested in.  It didn't seem to be going where we wanted it to (in hindsight, after studying the maps, it probably would have), so we ended up following some old roads across a ridge and down through a wash, which brought us to a social trail ... which brought us right back to the dinosaur bone interpretive trail.  So it all worked out in the end.

We saw five other vehicles on our walk back to the car but the bikepacker had moved on.  Milton was very tired and we all soaked in the extremely pleasant sunshine during post-hike snacks and beers.  We also came up with a route for next time, plus I want to find that Tusher Tunnel and also check out the Bartlett and Tusher slickrock areas, so I have a feeling we'll be revisiting Mill Canyon again soon.

Hike stats:  9.5 miles; 3:17 moving time / 2.9 m.p.h.; 3:40 overall time / 2.6 m.p.h.