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| Hiking | 9.00 Miles |
2,900 AEG |
| | Hiking | 9.00 Miles | | | |
| 2,900 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | I camped at Lockett Meadow for two days hiking the Inner Basin Trail #29 on the first day and doing this hike to the cirque on the second day. Knowing how slow I hike up hill, especially above 9000 ft, I started at 8:00 am and packed lunch and water for the entire day even though it is only a nine mile hike. As I hiked up the water company road towards Flagstaff Spring there were some spectacular views of the bright yellow patches of Aspen trees on the hill sides and down in the basin. Clouds were bunching up above the mountain peaks. It took me almost 3 hours to reach Flagstaff Spring about 2000 ft above the TH with fewer delays than usual for taking pictures. I followed HPP's directions to proceed up the riparian area from the spring and then take an elk trail between the two stream forks. I had studied the topograpy on both maps and google earth several days before and HPP's instructions to bare towards the left side stream bed appeared to be the least steep and also the most open. The elk must also have agreed because the trail I was following started bearing left and actually ended up in the bottom of the stream bed for some distance before heading straight up hill to the cirque. The altitude was getting to me as I climbed up the last stretch out of the stream bed - take two steps up then wait until my heartrate dropped below the pounding level, then two more steps and repeat until I reached the cirque at 11200 ft. The first thing I spotted when I reached this supposedly seldom visited cirque was a Coors Light can - weathering of the can indicated it had probably been there since July 16, 2009.   I added the can to the trash bag in my pack and proceeded on.
After pausing to eat lunch I started a loop exploration around the perimeter of the cirque. There were great views of the mountain walls surrounding the back half of the cirque. It looked like a great area for elk to hide out and there was an abundance of elk sign but I did not see any. It's one of those places where the solitude and absence of human traces (except for the Coors can) can make you feel like you're alone on this earth. Although temps had been comfortable at lower altitudes that morning it was quite cold on the cirque turning my finger tips numb and chilling me through my fleece pullover. There were numerous deep depressions in the cirque surface. These depressions looked like they could contain fair sized ponds during heavy runoff but the water must drain away quickly in the rocky soil. After spending only 1.5 hours in this amazing place I started the journey back down deciding to cross over to the Inner Basin upper meadow on the way back.
On the way back I encountered other hikers in the Inner Basin and ended up having some long conversations about the area and life in general - uncharacteristic for me because I normally don't feel the need to talk much - I was still high on my experience in the cirque. At the trailhead I encountered one of the couples I had talked to up in the Inner Basin packing up their gear in the parking lot. This was an excellent opportunity to get more info from this couple who knew a great deal about places to hike and the history of northern AZ. So I sauntered over and struck up a conversation - of course it also might have had something to do with the attractiveness of the young women and the hope that they might share one of the beers they were enjoying while winding down from their hike.  One beer later and full of info about everything from local history to good places to fish, I headed back to camp completely forgetting how tired I was.  |
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Route Editor
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