Route: Four Peaks Mother Lode (AZ)

Mike Baetz submitted this adventurous route:

The Mother Lode is a technical, approximately 8 mile lollipop route across the iconic Four Peaks that dominates the skyline to the East of the Phoenix Metro area. Technical difficulties are often 3-4th class with an occasional easy 5th class move. However, routefinding is crucial, as poor routefinding will result in much higher difficulties. It is more common to follow the Brown's peak trail to the Amethyst Mine trail and complete the ridge from S>N, but people also do it N>S by heading all the way up Brown's peak trail first. From South to North, you summit Amethyst, Sister, Brother, then Brown's Peak. Brown's peak is the highest summit at 7657.

There are several trip reports that show 10 hours or more to complete this route, but the fastest I have seen reported is Dave1 on hikearizona.com, with a time of 3 hours, 28 minutes and 18 seconds car to car going from N>S (5/22/2011).