Inner Basin Cirque Hike Photoset • Oregon_Hiker • 2015-06-19 • HikeArizona.COM

Inner Basin Cirque Hike, AZ

	2015-06-19
	14 by Oregon_Hiker

Inner Basin Cirque Hike

Flagstaff, AZ

Inner Basin Cirque Hike

Flagstaff, AZ

Hiking	9.20 Miles	2,752 AEG

Hiking	9.20 Miles	7 Hrs 35 Mns		1.21 mph
	2,752 ft AEG		12 LBS Pack

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Inner Basin Trail #29

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Got invited by my daughter and son-in-law to join them and my three grandkids for a Father's Day camping trip to the Flagstaff area. Mrs OH doesn't care for camping so she got to stay home. After some discussion of alternative destinations we decided on the camp ground at Lockett Meadow. I headed up on Thursday morning to secure a campsite and they would come up late Friday afternoon. That would give me all day Friday to do some hiking so decided to checkout the Inner Basin Cirque.

Lockett Meadow and the Inner Basin Trail can get crowded, especially when people are intent on escaping the 115 deg heat in the phoenix area and that was certainly the case on this trip. I secured one of the last three open campsites at about 1:00 pm and the camp ground was full by 3:00 pm. I don't normally like to camp or hike in crowded areas but I met some interesting people the last time I was there in Sept 2012. This trip was no exception. After setting up the huge family tent and other accoutrements needed for camping with young children, I settled into a chair with book and beer in hand for a few hours of relaxation. I was well into my second beer when a car with two young ladies came slowly driving by looking for an open campsite. A short time later they came walking up the road towards my camp. Not sure of their purpose I wondered if they might be hoping to share a campsite. Always the good Samaritan and being too easily influenced by pretty young damsels in distress, I offered my campsite for the night. They were quick to accept my offer and in no time had their tent set up on the far side of the camp site. Riley and Cheyenne turned out to be college girls on summer break who planned to stay overnight and go for a hike in the Inner Basin on Friday. It was an enjoyable evening chatting with them as we sat around the campfire. Early the next morning we parted ways, me hiking to the Inner Basin Cirque while they headed through the Inner Basin towards Doyle Saddle.

I got started up the trail to the Inner Basin about 15 minutes behind the girls. They were obviously in good shape

and quickly disappeared up the trail. I took my time stopping to take lots of pictures and pacing my self because it would be a long day if I made it to the cirque at 11200 ft elev. I passed through the lower part of the Inner Basin only seeing one other hiker and then followed the old roads up to Flagstaff Spring. Once above 10000 ft the altitude was starting to leave me breathless and slowed me down considerably. Snow banks were lurking in the shade of trees at this elevation. There was no above ground running water, only dried up stream beds, because the water from the melting snow is quickly absorbed into the volcanic cinder soil. The off trail climb up to the cirque from Flagstaff Spring is steep and the hillside at this point was mostly covered with snow making for slippery footing. Upon reaching the cirque I was surprised to see most of the trees had been recently blown down by what must have been a powerful microburst. One fairly large tree with a 10-12 inch diameter trunk had been thrown about 100 ft after being snapped off near the ground. The entire cirque was covered with 1 to 5 ft deep snow. The scene was very different from when I had last been there in late Sept 2012. I had planned to spend some time exploring the cirque but was just too exhausted and only made a quick survey before deciding to head back. I took the short route back to camp using the old road rather than the winding trail through the Aspens and was back by 2:45 pm. Plenty of time to get a car load of firewood before my kids arrived. The Forest Service has cut up a bunch of old dead fall around the camp ground, cut it into firewood length and stacked it up for easy access. I forgot to mention that the road up to Lockett Meadow was graded on June 18 making it easily accessible for BMWs and Mustangs as well as the soccer mom mini-vans. My family showed up at 6:30 pm and we had a great weekend enjoying this beautiful area.

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