| |
| Sante Fe via West Side Story and Skyline, AZ | |
|
| | Sante Fe #712 via West Side Story and Skyline, AZ | | | |
|
|
Sante Fe #712 via West Side Story and Skyline, AZ
| | |
|
| Hiking | 10.00 Miles |
796 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.00 Miles | 3 Hrs 36 Mns | | 2.78 mph |
| 796 ft AEG | | | | |
|
|
| |
| Partners |
|
none
[ show ]
| no partners | | This was my first ten-mile hike since mitral heart valve repair in November 2023 and was much easier than nine miles on Little Granite Mountain Trail #37 the week before, because the slopes are much more gradual. The middle six miles are on the railbed of the Iron Springs Railroad west of Skyline Drive, but it's downhill to the west and uphill on the return. The route starts at the Iron Springs Trailhead and uses the first 1.5 miles of West Side Story Trail #725 and a short stretch of Skyline Trail #712 to get to the east end of Sante Fe Trail #709 and then continues on Trail #709 until five miles are reached, so that the round-trip hike is ten miles. The photoset provides good examples of what the trail is like west of Skyline Drive. A few cars can park where Trail #709 crosses Skyline Drive, so it is possible to start hiking there and follow the Iron Springs railbed west.
Like the rest of Spence Springs Basin to the east, Trails #725 and #712 are in a Ponderosa/juniper/oak forest with lots of shade. Shortly after heading west on Trail #709, the Ponderosa pines and oaks disappear and the junipers become sparse with mostly desert holly and skunkbush sumac alongside the trail, until a tenth of a mile east of Skyline Drive when the trees briefly return. There is another stretch of Ponderosa pines and oaks in the fourth mile of the route. Just east of Skyline Drive, there are many Gambrel oaks, but along the rest of the trail the oaks are mostly Emory oaks. |
|
Wildflowers Observation Light
Lots of silverleaf nightshade in the center and alongside the trail, especially at 34.577867, -112.571247; quite a few purple prairie verbena and Arizona thistle; and a few common mullein and Dalmation toadflax, as well as many others. |
|
| _____________________
| | |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Route Editor
Route Scout
Route 
