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| Hiking | 6.90 Miles |
2,398 AEG |
| | Hiking | 6.90 Miles | | | |
| 2,398 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | I decided to go explore the Kachina Peaks area on a four night car camping/hiking trip - my first trip to the area. After reviewing some hikes on the HAZ site I picked three hikes in/near the Inner Basin. The Inner Basin Trail #29 was my choice for the first day. I arrived at Lockett Meadow at about 11:00 am on Wednesday. Wow!! The Aspen fall colors were amazing. About a third of the trees had turned a bright yellow but it was still early enough that only a few leaves had fallen to the ground. As an added bonus, I found the campground was open for camping with no fees and a brand new layer of gravel on the road and parking strips. After conversation with the only other camper at that time I decided the no-fee thing was because it was late in the season - normal fees are $12/night or half price for old goats like me. I staked out a campsite and started up the trail after deciding not to take the official HAZ gps route up an old road. It was a lucky choice - the trail which had been modified about 3 years ago takes a meandering switchback path through the most amazing Aspen grove. The old road route which I took on the way down is a dreary hike through dense forest.
In spite of the beautiful fall colors there were few people on the trail - a situation which would likely change on the weekend. On arriving at the Inner Basin meadow I met a free spirited young couple and their dog who were just hanging out enjoying the views and drinking a few brews. We struck up a conversation about other great places to go hiking in northern AZ. They both crewed on GC rafting trips through the summer. After a half hour of interesting conversation I finally decided they weren't going to share any of their Sierra Nevada Pale Ale of which they appeared to have an endless supply.  So I headed on up the trail looking for more photo opportunites. I would have better luck with getting a beer handout the next day from new found hiking pals.
The sky had started to cloud up but still had small patches of blue which made for great scenery pictures but taxes the limitiations of my pocket sized camera. I decided to try out bracketing the pictures with high and low exposures and then combining the pics with software I found on the web called Fusion 2.2 My old version of photoshop either doesn't have this capability or it has been cleverly hidden down deep in many layers of menus under some obscure name. This technique appears to be somewhat successful in enabling pictues that show the ground level scenery properly lighted with out blowing out the sky and clouds. It also gives some pictures the look of a painting rather than a photograph - haven't decided yet whether or not I like that effect.
After the photo session in the Inner Basin I returned to Lockett Meadow by a different route crossing over to the water company road that goes up to Flagstaff Spring and taking it all the way back to the campground. This was a more direct route with no delays for conversations with beer drinking sightseers. |
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Autumn Foliage Observation Moderate
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