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| Hiking | 9.30 Miles |
2,422 AEG |
| | Hiking | 9.30 Miles | 4 Hrs 49 Mns | | 1.93 mph |
| 2,422 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Some hikes just don’t go as planned. In this case, because of the misconceptions of a desert dweller. Sigh. My wife and I had several days of vacay in Flagstaff and I was looking forward to knocking off some new trails. Today, I was hoping to do a loop involving the Upper Oldham trail - a trail which I had never done. I got to the Elden Lookout TH around 6am. A little chilly out at 32 degrees, but I had a jacket and I knew the climb up Elden would warm me up…. (At least I got that right). As I made way up Elden, past Fat Man’s Loop, I had the trail to myself and it was pretty much as expected. There were a couple of spots that were a little muddy, but over all the trail was dry and in good condition. At one point during this stretch, I could even hear water streaming down off to the west…a sound you don’t typically hear when doing this hike. Just over 1.25 miles, I came to my first ice patch. These patches initially were quite small, infrequent and easily avoidable. I had actually expected there to be some snow and ice on the trail, but I assumed that with all the traffic that much of it would be worn down and melted. Not true. The higher up I went the larger these ice patches became. Luckily, there had been enough hikers before me that the path through the snow to the next clear part of the trail was easy to follow. But those patches became larger and larger the higher up I went, until finally, about .2 miles from the Sunset Trail juncture it was just snow and ice. I have got to say that I was very surprised by this development (desert dweller). The southern slope of Elden looked very “clean”, with very little snow. Not the case on the eastern portion.
By this point in time I knew that doing a loop with the Upper Oldham trail was very unlikely. With this much snow on the ground it would be practically impossible to follow an unfamiliar trail. My mind then went to option B; doing a loop involving the Heart trail. The Heart trail has an old and a new route. I had done the old route last year, I thought I might as well do the new. So onward I trudged through the Elden ice field. When I reached the Sunset juncture I thought I would skip the climb to the top (all snow) and just take Sunset over to the Heart trail. That changed immediately when I saw there were no tracks along this portion of the Sunset. The aspens, which crowd this section of the trail were just barely visible. I’m guessing the snow was at least 6 feet deep along this section. There were a couple of tracks making their way up to the towers, so onward to “Elden Peak”. I followed the most used tracks, which were no where near the actually trail. Even though I don’t think the snow was as deep on this side of the slope, I still came across foot steps that went in/down 2 feet into the snow. Luckily for me, the early morning temperatures kept the surface of the snow solid. I didn’t have any break thrus and slow and steady kept me upright. It felt great reaching the top, but it took quite a bit longer than I anticipated (1:40 minutes) and I was on a time schedule. So I didn’t enjoy my accomplishment long. From here, I took the service road to where it abutted the Sunset trail. Ironically, and misleadingly the Sunset was clear at this juncture and I thought I would be able to follow it as it worked its way along the ridge. Having some familiarity with this section of Sunset was very beneficial, because the trail quickly disappeared under the snow and ice. I actually stayed along the ridgeline, even though I knew the actually trail liked to play along the slopes of the ridge. I came across the trail twice while going along the ridge. I even came across the trail sign, peaking above the snow giving distances for Heart and Shultz trails. I had 3 mishaps along this portion of the hike….all my fault for trying to go too fast. No harm, except for a scraped shin where the soft soil gave out on me giving me a road rash as a souvenir.  A good lesson. And it slowed me down for the rest of the hike.
Approaching the Heart trail, I could see it plain as day cutting across the slope. But as I got closer I realized that the juncture with Sunset trail was buried under an ice shelf. There was no sign at all where these two trails joined. I realized that the only way to reach the Heart trail was to bypass the buried juncture and the snow and then down climb from the exposed slope above. Having learned my lesson along the ridge I took slow going down slope looking for rocks and foliage to stabilize my footing. Reaching the Heart trail, I thought I was home free only to discover as I came around a turn that the snow/ice slopes extended well past the ridgeline. The first patch extended about 50 yards but foot prints indicated that at least one intrepid hiker had attempted it. Leaning into the slope I followed in their foot steps. I felt quite accomplished until I rounded the next bend only to discover another ice patch. Only this one was larger and untrodden. Not sure where the other hiker had gone, but I decided then there that off trail was the way to go. The slopes were fairly steep, but there were quite a few areas without snow so I had options. I ended up crossing the old Heart trail on the way down, but the trail lead into another snow slope so I remained off trail. I ended up crossing the new Heart trail just before getting on an off chute of the Little Elden trail. Once on this user trail it was less than .5 miles before reaching the Christmas Tree trail which took me back to the TH.
Didn’t see my first hiker/runner until reaching this user trail and then there were several others along the way. These runners had let one of their dogs (a border collie) off the leash and it ended up chasing a herd of deer across the trail. Kind of funny. Kind of not. Quite the adventure, though a little tedious at times on the off trail down climb. |
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