Weather: 68ยบ, sunny
About this Hike: Just over a month ago I explored a segment of the Arizona Trail (AZT) with the goal of seeing Turkey Mountain. That hike enlightened me to about four more miles of AZT from AZ-87 to the trailhead parking area up along FR-82.
With clear skies, and this being the first weekend in a while that I'm not dodging rain clouds, I decided today was the day to explore this part of Passage 28 of the AZT.
I parked just off of 87 after driving through an unlocked cattle gate. The trail starts off in scorched ponderosa pine forest. Unfortunately, this defines the first mile or so of the hike. Many of the blackened trees don't appear to be completely dead. While about two-thirds of the lower needles are brown/orange, the crowns of the trees are still green. I wonder if they'll recover? Even more unfortunate, I believe this was controlled burns set by the USFS. I'll never understand how killing nearly all the trees in an area supports a healthy forest...
Eventually the condition of the forest did improve, although one never needed to look far to find fire-damaged ponderosas. The trail opens up at an overlook above Jack's Canyon and then descends into the canyon. The creeks still have a good amount of water in them from last week's torrential rain, but the few creek crossings were nearly dry and always easy to navigate.
In the canyon and along the creek was the best part of this hike in my opinion. The shrubbery in the canyon is exhibiting its full display of fall color, and this made for some pretty reflections off the standing pools of water in the creek bed.
After about four easy miles of hiking I reached FR-82, which was my goal for the day. I had previously explored the AZT beyond this point. I briefly considered walking up 82 a ways, turning left at FR-93D and looping back on that. It looks like 93D follows a drainage, and I thought it might be an interesting approximately two mile extension to the hike. I kinda wish I had done it. Likely the extension would be more grassland and ponderosa forest...not that that's a bad thing. Regardless, I opted to make FR-82 my turnaround point.
At the Hay Meadow Tank not so far from where I started there was a herd of cattle drinking the muddy water. Along with a herd of deer and a tarantula, this completed today's wildlife sightings.
I continue to enjoy exploring segments of the AZT between Happy Jack and Flagstaff.
No comments:
Post a Comment