Weather: 71ยบ, sun
About this Hike: Over the past two years I've completed both East Baldy and West Baldy trails. If I was brave and did the entire 16 mile loop in a day, I would have had to use the Crossover trail.
We didn't feel like a hike with too much elevation gain. I thought checking out Crossover would be perfect—get some of the Mount Baldy experience without the tough switchbacks and climbs.
We parked at East Baldy lot with the intention of possibly going up East Baldy to the rock formations, depending on how much time Crossover would take.
Crossover ended up being better than expected. There was some minor elevation gain. Much of it goes through thick White Mountain forest of spruces, firs, ponderosas, and aspens. Occasionally it opens up into big, grassy meadows. There were a couple of water crossings, with the final one being West Fork of the the Little Colorado at the West Baldy junction. While the most significant stream crossing, it was still very easy, especially when utilizing the log bridges placed by previous hikers.
We opted to follow the West Fork for what ended up being about 2.5 miles up West Baldy. My hiking partner was starting to get ideas about trying to close the loop. We were only about one-third of the way through the 16 mile loop, and a friendly hiker advised us that the tree blowdowns at the summit were severe. She said it could add a couple hours onto the hike with all the trail finding, tree ducking, etc. We opted to return the way we came. Since we did an extra 2.5 miles on the west side, we ended up not going up to the rocks on the east side.
My takeaway from today is that Crossover is a worthwhile trail unto itself. The scenery was better than expected, and despite no major elevation gain, this was still a great day hike in the White Mountains.
