Most people start their hike at the Sandys Canyon Trailhead. But I like doing my own thing, finding my own way & proving things to myself, so I went a different route: I decided instead to start from near the Lake Mary Picnic Area.

On satellite recon, I had noticed some odd structural bits on Walnut Creek, just north of Lake Mary Rd. To me, they looked like an old, collapsed dam. So, I decided to make that whazzit? my trailhead, hiking an extra mile, each way, more than I would from the official trailhead.

I saw no pavement remains on FR 9487B, nothing was obvious on satellite recon, and I could find nothing on google. Maybe a very old alignment of Lake Mary Rd.? Let me know if you have an info on the bridge!

Walnut Creek was easy going at first, but that soon changed. The rocks got larger, require much greater care with footing. Footing made all the more problematic by an exponential increase in vegetation, nearly all of the trippy variety: The wait-a-minute vines were dense, often waist deep, and with little barbs along the leaf edges. Not enough to stab you, but enough to catch on clothing. Even if your feet don’t get caught in something, wait-a-minute vines dragging on your clothing, arms or hiking poles can be enough to throw one off balance. One of my two falls happened that way.

A mile and half into my hike, I found a trail.(Which, it turns out, is from the Canyon Vista Campground to ‘The Pit’ climbing area.) I eventually found my way up a high class 2 crack in The Pit's wall to AZT #31.

Three miles into my hike, I finally hooked up with Sandys Canyon Trail #137. Sandys Canyon Trail was as nice as could be. Unless you really enjoy bushwhacking and mosquitoes — I got eaten alive! — avoid the route I took.

There were flowers of dozens of varieties everywhere. However, most of the flowers were small, and the patches normally not very large, so the color was not dense, but more dappled. Lots of bugs were chowing down on petals and other flower parts. I saw a couple making baby bugs.

You’ve heard of ‘slot canyons’, right? Well, this was a slot cave. Narrow, high-ceilinged and deep. At the main entrance, there is a decent sized alcove decorated with graffiti, no doubt by NAU students. From the alcove, the cave gets narrow, but easily navigable. It is much cooler than outdoors, causing the walls to be wet, and slimy, with condensation. 130 ft. in, there is a cavern. To the left is small passage to the outside. (I could see sunlight at the other end.) I could have low-crawled that. Heck, I made it in smaller holes when I explored Webber Mine.

Directly across the cavern from the main passage, is an even narrower passage. Six inches wide, at most. Even narrower than Fat Man’s Pass on South Mountain. Deeper too. I tried squeezing in. Despite turning sideways, I barely fit. No way could I have got past the opening without getting stuck. But then I am 40 lbs. overweight. Have any of you anorexic folks been back in there?

There was enough light to see much of the way into the cave, but not nearly enough to film past the first 30 ft. or so. I had brought a new flashlight with me, after my headlamp & previous flashlight proved so inadequate while exploring Hargan Mine. I was disappointed the flashlight was no brighter. At least it gave the video a spooky, Blair-Witch vibe.

After checking out the slot cave, I headed back south on Sandys Canyon Trail #137. When I got to where AZT #31 splits off to Marshall Lake (where I came from after my cliff climb), I instead stayed on Trail #137 towards the Sandys Canyon Trailhead. From the trailhead, I followed the power line southeast, basically paralleling Lake Mary Rd. back to my start point on FR 9487B.

p.s. I somehow managed to get sunburned during the eclipse. Totally forgot about it. Actually got my best light while it was happening, at The Pit.

p.p.s. Need recommendation on bright wide beam, but lite, flashlight.

Sandys Canyon Video: [ youtube video ]
Slot Cave Video: [ youtube video ]

Wildflowers
Tons of flowers, but scattered, not dense. Saw *at least* two dozen different species.

Just wasting gas and walking dogs. We started off on the beginning of the Walnut Canyon section of the AZT, but it seemed a little bland, so after a quick swim at a body of water some call a lake I guess, we headed to the Sandy Canyon Trail thinking it might be a little more scenic. It was, but it really did not matter, this was just a trip to spend sometime with the dogs, after a long time away from them and they enjoyed every bit of it.

Claire and I headed up to Flagstaff to spend the weekend playing in the snow. We started with Sandy’s Canyon after driving up on Saturday morning. The area had a good blanket of snow but the trail was well packed after lots of use. We headed out and made good time as we dropped into Sandy’s Canyon and headed north towards Fisher Point. Along the way we stopped at the cave below the point and then detoured east for another cool cave. This one has an alternate entrance that connects to the main entrance. We enjoyed this cave and then headed back and connected on to Fisher Point. We topped out and took a short lunch break. The views south were very nice and our weather was sunny and pleasant. From Fisher Point we dropped back into the canyon and headed south back to our trailhead. It was easy going as we hiked back and we passed about a dozen people hiking in. This was a nice hike and we had perfect weather.

I was invited up to Camp May for the weekend but could only swing Fri and Sat nite. All I can say about their camp is and so glad I came. Upon my arrival the Mays even helped me set up my tent. Once that was done it was time for alcohol and snacks and then an amazing spaghetti dinner with garlic bread. But not before a walk over to the little telescope set up to look in the meadow at the pronghorns. This one pronghorn had HUGE antlers. The Mays also promised me a meadow full of elk but that was not to be as I am an elk jinxer.

A little late in the evening I broke out the Fireball and we enjoyed that to give us the semblance of warmer bodies as it was a bit nippy. I don't know who at Reavis got me started on the Fireball but I have been passing along the tradition ever since . I slept pretty cold and realized about 4AM that I could use my sleeping bag liner but was too stupid to get out of the sleeping bag and retrieve it. The next morning we had a nice breakfast burrito and freshly brewed coffee. This camp has everything; it was such a treat. The Mays as I expected, were great hosts.

I wanted to do the Fisher Point hike and persuaded them and their friends to join us along with their two dogs. It was a little further away than I thot or seemed to recall from the map but we had all day to do what we wanted anyway. We made our way to the first junction with the AZT. Stephanie and Wade went up for a geocache (had to go up a pretty good hill). And then the pretty descent into Sandy's Canyon; all the time remembering you had to come back up.

We crossed the dry Walnut Creek and then headed north on the trail passing the intersection with the trail to Marshall Lake and then the intersection that takes you to Flagstaff in under 4 miles. As you walk a little further east we finally spotted the cave and not too far a sign that said Fisher Point 1.1 miles UP the hill. So up we went encountering a couple switchbacks along the way. The up wasn't too bad as it leveled off a few times until you finally reach the intersections with Arizona Trail (before the intersection at the top of the hill there is also an intersection to another trail but I can't remember the name).

We thot once at the point you would have views of the SF Peaks and such but you don't. Our mileage at the top was 4 miles. According to two trip reports the total mileage was supposed to be 6 miles (however, after re-reading the reports, Fisher Point was considered the cave below the point ) We hung up here for a bit and had a snack before making our way again. Now as you start coming down (heading north), you finely get fleeting views of the snow-topped SF Peaks. It's a nice little drainage you hike next to when you start heading south with some cool trees and rock formations and dead fallen over tree trunks.

We headed over to the cave and checked it out and then decided we wanted to go further on to see the other caves. So glad we did as walking thru this section is so cool with the rock walls and grasses. I thot you might find this interesting: from http://www.hikemasters.com/2012/12/sandys-canyon-walnut-canyon-coconino-nf.html

Prior to the building of the dam on Lake Mary to contain the waters that make up 50% of Flagstaff's water supply, Walnut Canyon actually contained a free-flowing creek that sustained the ancient Sinagua people's of the area. As you hike into the canyon, you can see evidence of this once flowing creek in rounded river rocks that have mostly since overgrown with grasses and shrubs today.
The layered rocks ahead of you are Coconino Sandstone, which represent the tilted layers of ancient sand dunes when the region was one of the world's largest deserts some 260 million years ago.

These rocks he speaks of reminded me of THE WAVE area up in northern AZ/southern UT.

Before continuing Mary Jo got her phone out to let the other folks know we'd just meet them back at camp. The internet/phone reception seems unlimited up here. Anyway, after passing a few hikers and asking them about the caves they said they had just left one. You come to the first cave pretty quickly, we checked it out and then headed down the trail for the bigger one I had read about.

Soon we were there, took off our packs and put on our headlamps to explore deeper into this very chilly and narrow cave. It has a very narrow but very tall entrance and comes to an end pretty abruptly really. We could see another passage way but it was not very tall. I decided I would get on my knees and crawl a bit to see it was worth our making the effort. I could see where the area ended but it didn't look like there was a room or anything. With Mary Jo's guidance I crawled backward out of the opening. We may have expected more but it was still pretty neat.

Mary Jo decided we needed to go check out the opening so we did. We found some inscriptions but what impressed us was the changing colors of the rock above our heads. Hopefully the pictures will convey how beautiful it was. And now that we were done playing it was time to head back so off we went at a pretty quick pace not stopping until the always impressive lava field. There was a wonderful light wind almost the entire way.

The hill coming up out of the canyon really wasn't too bad as it had some level spots so we made pretty decent time of it I thot. As you are hiking east you get a great view of the lava rocks that you really can't see when heading out on the trail. Mary Jo and I took a side trip to get a closer look. It seems so massive. Across the way is the climber's wall but we didn't see anybody out.

We stopped at Lake Mary store to get some ice, beer and bacon and a soda for me and gatorade for Wade before our drive back to camp. That evening Stephanie had prepared teriyaki skirt steak fajitas and Mary Jo had prepared a Moscow Mule in a beautiful copper mug:

A Moscow mule is a buck or mule cocktail made with vodka, ginger beer, and lime served in a copper mug. It became popular during the vodka craze in the United States during the 1950s. The name refers to the popular perception of vodka as a Russian product.

Still no elk sightings just two of the three pronghorn. The elk jinx continues. I should say "live" jinx since I did see one on the drive to Pine but it was dead .

It got cold again so we were in our tents around 9. That's a little early for me so since everyone seemed to have internet access, I grabbed my phone and checked out FB and HAZ for a bit before turning in. Tonite however, I grabbed my sleeping liner and I slept much warmer except I still have that rotisserie motion going on when one side or the other got a little chilly. Every time I turned, the one side of my mouth grinded together and that hurt. It's caused by my fractured tooth I believe.

The next morning I got up and gathered things to make my way to Pine to meet up with my AZT partners but not before sitting and enjoying coffee at Camp May. Mary Jo and Wade helped me tear down my tent and pack it away. Now how nice is that plus Mary Jo wanted to make sure I had enough food and snacks for my hike. She was even going to make me breakfast but that was way beyond the pale so I politely begged off but look forward to that the next time I come to Camp May.

Here are some videos:
Part 1 Pronghorn in the meadow and the first part of the hike toward Fisher's Point via Sandy Canyon - http://youtu.be/YaE4yFjfIXc
Part 2 Hike over to Fisher's Point and back down to cave - http://youtu.be/lkpUsfcVxMU
Part 3 the other caves http://youtu.be/g_swU_ThW8M

PS forgot to mention that the slash piles Wendy and I had seen on the hike in Sandy's Canyon in June of 2011 looks to have been burned off this year. I took some photos of the aftermath.

A nice loop with varied and unique views. By no means easy.

Two small snakes and one tiny one too. Perhaps a pound total in weight. Bruce found a skunk. Didn't tell me. Told to get out of area. Kinna backfired as why set in.

Only 2.5 quarts agua consumed as the weather was extremely nice for the most part. Wet foliage hampered us with wet feet for twenty miles, otherwise enjoyable. A half mile and quarter mile section are the worst parts. No cats claw just plenty to tear you apart if you come unprepared. Arizona rose was thick for long stretches which would destroy a hiker in sandals/shorts.

Intrigued that we hiked "down" canyon. Like most north Mogollon Rim canyons it flows... north

The canyon walls narrow up nicely down to maybe fifty feet in a couple spots. Lots of easy free solo climbing opportunities for those interested. No desire to redo this one. Nevertheless an experience I will cherish.

video that will touch a nation...
http://youtu.be/2V7dXRZ-Wto

Wildflowers
No huge fields of iron bleeding yellows.
Plenty of smaller varieties to keep anyone interested engaged for hours.

Since the first time I was in the Walnut Canyon area, I'd always wondered what it would take to get back towards the National Monument via the canyon on. After numerous delays, and with a willing participant, today was the day.

The plan was to start at the Canyon Vista Campground TH off Lake Mary Rd, down Sandy Canyon Trail, hop on AZ #31, hit Walnut Canyon just past the alcove, attempt to make the Walnut Canyon National Monument Border, climb out of the canyon and loop back on AZT#31. I figured it was 20ish miles depending on what route we could get out of the canyon. Joe was bright eyed, had a positive attitude and raring to go.

The hike started at a comfortable 61 and didn't hit 80 until we ultimately climbed out of the Canyon. We had some light rain between 10a and 1pm. Just enough to get the foliage and us wet.

2.5 Miles - Sandy Canyon Trail to the alcove under Fisher Point. Easy, pretty, meadow with flowers between the Canyon walls. I like this area.

3.0 miles - to the Cave. Light used trail leads south to the entrance.

11.25 miles - to the National Monument border. The trail goes the entire length. I have to qualify that even though there is a trail there, in spots it is next to near impossible to follow. The brush gets thick...real thick in spots. You can get through the canyon if you pick you routes carefully. After about 1.5 miles past the Cave, the trail is more than likely there due to animal traffic. Other than birds down there, we spotted lot of Elk sign, some bear sign, a small sleeping snake, and a skunk that we were lucky enough to pass 15' from without incident. The Walnut Creek National Monument Border is marked with a small sign on a tree, and 50 yards farther down, by a old broken down t wire fence. At this point we turned around an found our route north out of the canyon.

12 miles - Out of the canyon - Joe found a nice route out that appeared to carry moderate Elk traffic.

13 miles - Finally on a real trail (AZT#31)

18.5 miles - Fisher Point overlook. I never get tired of the view from up there.

22.2 - Back to the truck just after sunset.

Thanks for joining me on this one Joe.
Now you can take me to see Jesus.

We followed the description and did the uphill to Fisher Point. This is a nice walk. Looking at the Flagstaff Trail map while sitting at Fisher Point we realized we could pretty easily make a loop back to the car. This was done by descending back to the prominent trail triangle in the clearing below Fisher Point and taking the spur to the northwest. A short distance later Fay Canyon branches left (not specifically marked). This was also nice walking and the trail became more prominent as it switchbacked up the hillside. The trail eventually turns into a road at the end of the canyon and approaches Lake Mary Rd. It stays in the trees and turns south but does hit an inhabited area with numerous annoying fences which pushed us up to the shoulder of Lake Mary Road for about 100 yds before we could dive back into the woods and complete the loop.

Enjoyable loop...made slightly more so by getting soaked to the skin @ 58deg before driving home to PHX.

spent a couple day in flagstaff with cactuscat
chose walnut canyon out of the 100 hikes book for saturday
parked at the campground and took the vista trail over to le petit verdon (aka the pit) climbing area to check it out
found some nice looking climbs, two or three that looked like something i would try leading, and more that would be fun to try on toprope
hiked back up and then took sandy's canyon trail down into walnut canyon, then followed one of the arizona trail segments to the cave at fisher point
went a little further to the walnut canyon sign, but didn't want to put in more mileage than we had, so headed back after exploring the cave
fun little hike, but quite exposed given the relatively high temps for the flagstaff area
love this area
mileage estimated from my gps, which went a little crazy in the cave

It's funny in that as I was walking back from the mailbox I was going to go ahead and post this report I had written a couple days ago. I had been waiting to see where Wendy would post hers, ha!

I think we had originally planned to hike Kendrick while Mr. Wendy fished somewhere. We ended up hiking Marshall Lake to Sandy Canyon and Gary attempted a try at fishing on a very windy day at Ashurst Lake. After a longer than expected drive :roll: to Flagstaff and getting stuff for the evening, we finally set up camp just east of the AZ Trail TH by Prime-Vail Lake/Observatory. Gary helped us set up a shuttle at Canyon Vista campground (which seemed a long way away and I was wondering how long a hike Wendy was REALLY taking me on )and then took us back up to the TH above Marshall Lake.

At 2:15 we started this hike which begins on the Anderson Mesa and takes you down a little elevation to the roads at Marshall Lake where you continue west a bit on the road before heading south on the gravelled trail. You go several miles through what I would call wide open forest with occasional glimpses of the SF Peaks. We encountered 4 people with 5 horses on this part of the trail. Wendy kept promising we would get to Walnut Canyon and I was looking forward to that.

We finally got to the Canyon and would start heading down on a pretty rough old jeep road. We found some of the rocks quite interesting. We are hoping someone can identify this: (see photo igallery/image_page.php?id=4542. And of course, Wendy reminds me we gotta come up the other side :STP:; she loves teasing me about that "up" stuff.

As we're getting ready to make a swing to the north, Wendy decides we should check out a faint trail we can see that is heading south. So over we go where we can finally look into Walnut Canyon . Surprisingly, we saw two sets of climbers on each side of the view point we had come out on. Across the way we could see some RVs and Wendy said that was probably the campground we had left Tonto at... I thot "no way". Well soon we would discover "way".

We also noticed the crumbled volcanic rock across from us which was pretty neat looking. After watching the climbers for a bit. The gal seemed to attack that wall (see photos when I post them) and came over what looked like an impossible ledge before gracefully rapelling back down (see video). We took a photo of each other and then it was off to see what else awaited us.

Not too far from there and just a little off the trail Wendy spotted some aspens shooting out of the canyon along with a rock fall so we scooted over there to observe and also get some photos of the aspen framing the SF Peaks. It didn't take long to get to the bottom and soon we came across the meadow between the canyons. The east side of the canyon in this particular section had some of the most beautiful rock I had ever seen with extreme hues of gold, pink, red, and grey...magnificent.

Eventually we would get to the center of the canyon floor where we come to the intersection with the trail to Sandy's Canyon to the south and Fisher Point (2 miles) to the north. We decided we weren't inclined nor had the time to make the 4 mile round trip to Fisher Pt so we just walked up about 1/3 of a mile, give or take, before turning back and heading down the Sandy's Canyon trail. It was a little past the trail sign that we took our first and only break.

The canyon was all in shade now as we continued our way south along the "blue line" (creek bed) and eventually west toward the road (Lake Mary road). We kept expecting to have a good climb out but it was nice and gradual and thru a pretty area. Shortly we would encounter the AZ Trail intersection where you can continue to the road or to the south and east on the Sandy's Cany trail to the Canyon Vista campground. This is where we started encountering additional hikers.

Eventually we would discover that we were directly across from where we had been not more than an hour or so ago and that, in fact, the climbers were in an area designated for them as there is a trail sign for that. We also were impressed by the volcanic rock area we had seen from the other side and again by the climbers on the other side of the canyon as they seemed so small from this vista.

Before you knew it, we were back at Tonto and on our way back up to camp. It hardly seemed an 8 mile hike but Wendy and I had a lot of catching up to do so maybe that's why.

We got the rest of our camp set up including a lesson in setting up and getting in and out of a hammock (Thx Wendy), had a beer and then started getting serious about making dinner. I was glad the wind died down for the evening too as it had been gusting pretty heavy all day. Wendy and Gary got to try out their new Kelly Kettle; it's quite the contraption. And while Wendy was making our mac and cheese and grilling the dogs, we also embibed in some white wine .

Soon it was time to give the hammock a test. Other than being slightly chilled now and again (even with the underquilt), it was much better than I anticipated; especially since I'm a "cat napper" when sleeping in the wild. It was great to be able to look up at the star-lit sky and watch the moon come up in-between tossing and turning and being almost wide awake at times. I had plenty of room and could shift pretty easy. I felt great in the AM :whistle: . So we'll give this one more test using my new slightly inflated 4 R-value Exped mat at the bottom of the hammock.

Great day, great hike, great dinner and great company... :A1:

This is a somewhat long video but I didn't want to make two separate videos. You can always watch it in sections but I think it flows fairly quickly: [ youtube video ]

We had debates on whether or not this passage was going to/needed to be done. In my opinion, it had a number, it had to be done.

The drop into Sandy's Canyon was, as always, gorgeous.... as well as the hike through the meadow at the bottom to Walnut Canyon. I remember this area as being one of my favorites so far on the AZT.

I agree that hiking on sidewalks is not really my idea of a good hike, but the city portion was memorable none the less. The gang found all sorts of new props in the "Big City" to play with. Joe even found some new hiking partners for future trips.

http://hikearizona.com/photo.php?ZIP=195537

Once we started getting away from the pavement and close to the halfway point around Buffalo Park, some goof ball remembered that they had left the keys for the Car at the North TH, in the Car at the South TH. No one else so far has named this numb skull, so I'll keep it that way also.

After lunch in Buffalo Park we discussed our options. Joe, being the trooper he is, never once complained, or squawked (no really!) and offered to go back through his favorite portion of the trail (on the pavement) to retrieve the car and keys. He met up with us at Shultz Tank, fast asleep, dreaming of sugar plumbs and cross walks.

The hike through the flat, but interesting Buffalo Park and back into the hills and green trees was a treat. It's understandable that we saw more hikers, runners and bike riders on this AZT Passage, than any other to date.

Thanks guys for another great AZT walkabout. Thanks again Joe!
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