Connection between Veit Springs Lasso & Freidlein Prairie Rd

[amy1300]

At the trailhead for Veit Springs Trail, aka Lamar Haines Memorial Wildlife Area, is a Forest Road sign marked "9008U." My Flagstaff Trails map shows the trail as Veit Springs Trail (a lasso) but makes no reference to 9008U - I suppose because it's no longer a road for vehicles. The HAZ description of this trail, and a photo of the sketch map I refer to in the next paragraph, are found here: https://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=1003

On July 28th, 2017, I was camped in one of the "dispersed" sites along Freidlein Prairie Road. Along the North side of FP Road, maybe 1 - 1.5 miles east of Snowbowl Rd, I noticed a small parking area/Trailhead, which also had a sign marked "9008U." This area also is not marked on my map. I met someone there, who said the trail there led to a rock-climbing area (if you followed a fork to the right). I had a couple hours to kill, so I followed his directions and found the escarpment and two people climbing. Nice little hike for an afternoon, after the drive up to the Peaks and setting up a camp.

The 9008U signs, and the fact that the sketch map on the bulletin board at Veit Springs shows an "escarpment," lead me to wonder whether these two trailheads are connected up, by a trail that isn't on a map? Does anybody know about this? Think I'll explore this a bit next time I'm up there.

[chumley]

If you view the area on the HAZ map and change the layer to either of the FS options, the road is there.

If you plot GPS routes in view, you'll see that there are even two routes posted from people who have hiked the road.

https://hikearizona.com/map.php?QX=6441

[amy1300]

Thanks for the map! Good to know I should be able to hike the route from FP Road. Not sure where the map came from though . . . "HAZ map" and "FS options" = things I have not figured out yet.

If weather forecast still looks good tomorrow morning I think I'll mosey back up there and take a look . . .

[trekkin_gecko]

got to wondering about the climbing area
found it on mountain project
https://www.mountainproject.com/v/the-p ... /110519565
had no idea

[amy1300]

@trekkin_gecko - Thanks for that link! The description of how to find the crag is the same as the man told me at the parking area -- hike a quarter mile or so, turn sharp right where there's a tree down across the trail, and if you come to a rusted-out car body you've gone too far and need to backtrack. The crag is then easy to find when you've hiked a half hour or so, if there are climbers on it, because you can hear the gear clicking and the climber and belayer talking. If you don't hear anything, you need to know it's a left turn to get to the crag after the half hour hike. I tried following the trail straight on past the crag for a bit, but it petered out fast, so I'd guess you will run out of trail before you've gone far, if you initially miss the turn to the crag. Interesting to see people have documented routes with ratings. The climber I saw had about 8 - 10 pieces of protection in the crag by the time she got to the top, so his estimate of routes 90' high sounds about right. I don't climb anymore, but it looks like very nice rock to me - nothing loose, etc.

So it looks like if I step over the downed tree and continue straight, passing the rusted out car, I'll connect up with the Veit Springs area, without having to drive up to its parking lot on Snowbowl Rd. Sweet.