Closure Area Near Mt. Elden

[DixieFlyer]

I noticed that the closure area around Mt. Elden is supposed to reduce significantly starting today. A portion of Schultz Pass Rd, is still closed to motorized vehicles, but you can walk on Schultz Pass Rd. It looks like you can now drive in on Elden Springs Rd (FR 556) to Schultz Pass Rd and park there, which will get you fairly close to Schultz Tank. Some of the previously closed trails are now open to hiking.

https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/coconino ... EPRD639963

[Jim]

I'd like to head up there and check out some of that area. Elden is always a good hike, better when more length is incorporated. Long drive, though. I wonder when they will wrap the project up.

This was at least 10 years overdue, more like 20+. I don't know why it took until now to execute it. I went to the webpage and watched a few of the cuddly videos made by NAU kids to promote it. They reference the Schultz Fire as a reason behind the thinning, but 3 full years before that I talked with fire guys who told me about the endless hobo fires they would be called out for in June and July, all around the base of the Elden-Dry Lake Hills complex. In 2006 there was that Woody Fire, just west of town that really freaked everyone out. When I arrived in Flagstaff there were all these projects going on in the general area, but none were all the significant from a hydrology perspective, as I recall. "Experimental" projects on the Fort Valley north of town, and light stuff around it. Seems that it took way, way too long for this to happen and Flagstaff is plain lucky they lost what they did in the Schultz (which I predicted a few years before).

[chumley]

My understanding is that right now it looks pretty ugly. Some of the 4FRI thinning operations I've been through have left a forest of dirt, stumps, and sticks. It takes a year for the grasses to grow, and it looks pretty nice again. Right now I think it'll be gross.

[Jim]

@chumley
Still, I would like to take a look, and I might take more than a few necessary photos to document the changes. Of course, I will struggle to point the camera down below the sky level, but what I lack in accuracy, I will more than make up for in volume.


Plus, I have wanted to hike Elden for a while, and that area is a good one for making a 8 to 12 mile loop with decent AEG.

[wildwesthikes]

@chumley
Yep. I was with a group of four bikepacking up schultz pass, through waterline rd. and down the other side to lockett meadow as part of a larger loop over the weekend and those were the conditions we had up high on the mountain. We had to portage bikes countless times over downed pines. Sides of the mountain were leveled pretty barren. Still gorgeous views with much of the aspen filled areas left intact.

[Jim]

@elleryjk
Are you referring to the Dry Lake Hills-Mount Elden Complex, or the east side of the San Francisco Peaks along the Waterline Rd? From your post, it seems the later, and these two areas are not undergoing analogous treatments. Huge areas burned in the 2010 Schultz Fire and probably have a lot of down dead trees, and aspen regimentation. The NE slope of the Dry Lake Hills are included in this, and there are also a lot of 5 to 8 year old planted pines, hopefully with their planting protectors removed.