Strawberry Crater, AZ

Overview
The only trail in the Strawberry Crater Wilderness just touches the northwest corner of the wilderness, albeit the most interesting part. The trail explores the outside and inside of the crater, crossing over the rim at a couple of low points. There are ruins in the area, but to find them, you will have to explore off-trail.


Hike
Although the sign at the trailhead says the hike is 1 mile, it is really about 1.9 miles. From the parking area, the trail heads straight toward the mountain, becoming increasingly vague as you travel the first few hundred yards. At one point, the trail appears to fork, but stay to the right, and you will soon come to a signed junction where the loop trail around the mountain goes left and right.Proceeding to the left, clockwise around the loop, the path remains clear as it climbs gently up the left shoulder of the extinct volcano, passing through fields of Apache plume and grasses punctuated by scarlet gilia. The path tops out at 6130 feet and then drops into the crater, which is completely open to the east.

Follow the trail into and across the crater, and it soon switchbacks up to a second pass at around 6325’. Proceeding down around the southern outside of the volcano, the path traverses across a steep scree slope, and then into a grassy area where it may be a little hard to follow. Don’t be tempted to take the steep use-trail down the scree slope but instead continue on a gentle downward traverse as it contours around the mountain, eventually rejoining the trail to the parking lot.

2022-10-19 GrangerGuy