North Canyon, Saddle Mtn Wilderness

[JoelHazelton]

Hey all,

This coming weekend I'm accompanying a group into the Saddle Mountain Wilderness to backpack the North Canyon trail. It will be a short overnighter and we will be starting the hike at the bottom of the trail (@6,000 ft elevation, as opposed to @8,000 at the top). We likely will be camping in the canyon, prior to the steep ascent to the top of the plateau, so the AEG will be minimal without that final climb. The group consists of various fitness levels and we're trying to keep it fairly moderate for all.

I'm just wondering if anyone has hiked this trail and can offer any insight on difficulty, route-finding, water sources, camping availability, etc. HAZ description only offers a generic excerpt from elsewhere and there are no triplogs.

Thanks for any advice!

[VVebb]

Hahaha... Just logged into HAZ for the first time in months. Immediately I saw this forum entitled "North Canyon, Saddle Mtn Wilderness" and thought, "Hey, sweet! I'm going there this weekend! Maybe I can learn something!"

...

Then I realized it was you, and that nobody else had responded yet. Maybe somebody will respond soon, and we'll know what we're facing this weekend. See you tomorrow!

[joebartels]

Someday I hope to get to explore east and west of the great Kaibab Plateau. Definitely look forward to your guys triplogs and photos

[VVebb]

Definitely look forward to your guys triplogs and photos

The existing hike description is pretty lame -- it' s really vague, is written by an unregistered author, and is mostly just copy/pasted from a USFS website. Do either of you know whether the HAZ hike-description moderators would allow one of us to write a fresh description that is more helpful and includes photos, or are we stuck with just writing triplogs?

I spoke with the USFS ranger who manages the area, and she said that even the rangers don't get into this area much -- she encouraged me to send her photos when I get back. It seems like many people would benefit from a new description for this one.

[joebartels]

Oh please and that it'll make easy for you to send one link to the ranger too. All the unregistered and HAZ Hikebot pages are up for grabs.

Even the established descriptions are up for grabs if a considerably more informative one comes along. ie: A good dozen of my old descriptions have been remastered by other members over the years. It's best to ask first on these situations.

[joebartels]

Is this area worthy of a visit?

[JoelHazelton]

Neither of us has gotten around to description or triplog... Sorry Haven't been in much a writing mood as of late.

The trail had it's ups and it's downs... The trailhead and first couple miles are a scorcher during the summer. High desert flora, zero shade. The creekbed is bone dry through most of it, which was a bit of a concern since I brought enough water for the hike in and nothing more. Forest service website talked about perennial water. Overgrown maples and oaks galore starting maybe around mile 2. The trail will disappear at a wall of maples, you bust through about 30 feet of it, then the trail will reappear on the other side. Kinda fun if you don't mind that sort of thing (which I don't... At least they're not prickly). Others in the group didn't like it so much, though. After about 3 miles water was really starting to become a concern. I kept running off the trail to check the creekbed, and finally right around mile 4 I spotted small pools connected by trickles. We all rejoiced. From there the ponderosas get real thick and the water gets better the farther upstream you go. By the time you reach the junction with the side trail that leads you up to the East Rim Viewpoint you're in storybook mountain creek country. We camped on a shelf above the creek about 1/4 mile upstream from the junction. That evening I explored the creek upstream, which was amazing. Cascade after cascade with a couple 8 foot waterfalls thrown in for good measure. Lush, green vegetation everywhere and trout in the creek (protected trout... no fishing). None of the pools were big enough to swim in, but the water was ice cold anyhow. Definitely tasty, though. There was one other group camped almost a mile up from us. Otherwise, we were all alone the entire trip.

Personally, I likely wouldn't go back. While the upper canyon is absolutely gorgeous, the drive from Phoenix rivals that of the white mountains, where you have many more options once you're out there. The viewpoints accessed from the trail are very easily accessed from the East Rim area. East Rim Viewpoint is paved, not far from the highway, and the upper trailhead of North Canyon is accessible via a couple miles of dirt road.

If I were to return to the area I would choose a trail with some more unique views of the Canyon and surrounding area. Saddle Mountain Trail, which was our original option, still looks rather intriguing to me. If I want creeks and trees I'll likely go to Rim country instead.

I guess I can copy and paste this into a triplog now...

[joebartels]

Sweet, sounds like I need to experience it at least once
Probably best in Autumn with other hikes planned to overcome that horrendous drive.

[VVebb]

Sweet, sounds like I need to experience it at least once

Let me know when you're thinking about going to do it, and and I might go with ya. The overgrowth on the middle 1/3 of the trail would give me an excuse to buy a machete. Also, you probably noticed since you're the administrator, but I just posted a new hike description for this one recently.