Ellen S - Arizona Trail Journal - 2024

Some cooler hiking

After finishing our spring/summer hike in Spain and recovering from the jetlag when coming home, we were ready to do some hiking! We loaded up the truck for camping and were off.

We started north of Mt Humphreys, at FR 523 where the trail begins to descent to the junipers and pastureland. Hiking south, we stopped to check out Borrego tank. This was a pleasant side trip, and relatively easy to find. On the way back, we again encountered a good scatter of pottery. There's an area that looks like it could have had a spring centuries ago. Certainly, the volume of pottery suggests that the area was used regularly back during the Hopi times. We continued onward to where we had set up a base camp. Lovely pines and the steady breeze that seems to always inhabit the Flagstaff area.

The next day, we hiked from Aspen Loop back to our camp. Pleasant hiking and mostly downhill in the pines and aspens. We saw a few mountain bikers, no hikers. Despite the dry summer, the meadows were fairly green. The trail eventually joined a rough dirt track that led us close to camp.

The final day was an easy walk from Aspen Corner down to the Snow Bowl road crossing. We detoured to see the water source (Alfa Fia Tank), which had a good amount of water. We saw some ravens getting a drink. Lots of tracks at the water sources show how important these places are this year. We saw a few hikers and runners using this part of the trail. I suppose it's a bit steep for many of the mountain bikers.
We had hoped to do the sections through the peaks that roughly parallel Schultz Pass Road. Guess I should have done some research ahead...the Road is closed PERMANENTLY. The Arizona Trail Association advises doing the Flagstaff route instead. We had done the Schultz Pass area many years ago and wanted another look at it. Having done the trail/urban path through town many times, we didn't feel like doing it at this time. I have to wonder about the permanent closure. I'm all for fire restrictions (I've gone cookless in AZ for years). Closing the area completely and permanently pretty much makes it impossible to dayhike. Not sure about restrictions for camping, but I suppose the area is closed to that, too. A big disappointment!

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