A 295
| NGS PID: | CZ0724 |
| Coordinates: | N 32.273889° W 111.218333° (estimate) |
| Location: | Arizona
Pima County Avra Quad |
| Elevation: | 2347.2 ft. |
| Type: | Bench Mark Disk |
| Setting: | Rock Outcrop |
| Monumented: | 1951 |
| Monumented By: | NGS |
| Status: | Not Found |
| Condition: | Unknown (Not Found) as of March 22, 2019 |
- Official Description: NGS Datasheet
After our exciting little hike to K 28, there were two more benchmarks on today’s list. We couldn’t find the first of these, A 295. We had two sets of coordinates to work with: those from the NGS datasheet (listed as scaled and therefore likely to be significantly off) and those I had pulled from the topo map. We carefully searched the road shoulder and the hillside in the area of both sets of coordinates, but we didn’t even find a likely outcropping let alone the mark. Our conclusion at the time was that the area had changed since the mark was placed, because the road names and configurations in the description didn’t match what we saw, nor was there any likely outcropping three feet higher than the road.
The description states:
… AT A LARGE TRIANGLE FORMED BY THE Y JUNCTION OF KINNEY AND PALO VERDE TRAIL, ROADS, AND IN THE TOP OF A LARGE ROCK OUTCROP, 119 FEET SOUTH OF THE NORTHEAST APEX OF THE TRIANGLE, 15 1/2 FEET SOUTHEAST OF THE CENTER LINE OF THE SOUTHEAST LEG OF THE TRIANGLE (KINNEY ROAD), AND ABOUT 3 FEET HIGHER THAN THE ROAD.
As far as we can tell, there is no longer a Palo Verde Trail in the area. The current road names are Kinney, Sandario, and Golden Gate. Furthermore, we didn’t see anything that looked like a triangle.
The situation became clearer when, later, we checked the historical topo maps at USGS Historical Topographic Map Explorer. The triangle is clearly visible on both the 1947 and 1957 maps (with the addition of the benchmark location on the 1957 map). By 1996, it’s apparent that the roads in the area have been altered significantly. The straight north-south Sandario Road was added, and while it still curves around the hill in the area of the former triangle, the roads forming the triangle are no longer marked or passable. (They are still faintly visible in satellite imagery.) The benchmark would have been so close to the edge of Sandario Road that it is likely to have been removed or buried during construction.
If we’re in the area again, I would take another quick look for this mark, but my impression at this point is that it’s no longer viable.
