|
| | | Arizona Fire Lookouts IV, AZ | | | |
|
|
Arizona Fire Lookouts IV, AZ
| | |
| |
|
| Hiking | 13.00 Miles |
1,519 AEG |
| | Hiking | 13.00 Miles | | | |
| 1,519 ft AEG | | | | |
|
|
| |
| Partners |
|
none
[ show ]
| no partners | | I was on my way up to Flagstaff and decided to hit 4 fire lookouts that I had not been to before: Moqui Lookout, Blue Ridge, Apache Maid Mountain, and the Mormon Lake LO.
Moqui Lookout and Blue Ridge Lookout
I drive up to the Moqui Lookout and parked next to the lookout tower. Unfortunately, in this COVID era they weren't allowing visitors up to the tower.
I then walked on a road to the site of the old Blue Ridge Lookout. All that is left are some concrete footings. There are lots of trees around, so there isn't much in the way of views there.
Apache Maid Mountain
This one is a neat tower, and there was some great scenery on the hike. I found the benchmark and one reference mark on the mountain, not too far from the tower.
I had intended to drive to the base of the mountain and hike up to the lookout -- that would have been about 4 miles. Actually you could drive almost all the way up, but it is a gentle upslope on the road with some nice scenery, so I'd recommend walking. Unfortunately, I took a bad route in on a crappy road, and got tired of the road so I decided to make a longer hike out of it.
Nobody was manning the tower, so I climbed up to the trap door, which was padlocked shut.
Mormon Lake Lookout
This tower no longer exists. I saw a pic of the tower in a triplog by @chumley from 2006, so the tower was dismantled sometime between then and now.
This was a short walk through the woods with almost no views along the way or at the top.
Synopsis
Apache Maid Mountain was the easy winner of these 4 lookouts. Most any vehicle could drive to a shut gate just below the summit, but there is nice scenery so it is worth walking on the gently-graded road to the summit. There is no longer a lookout at the Mormon Lake site or the Blue Ridge site, and there is really not much to see at either one. The Moqui Lookout would be worth stopping post-COVID, whenever that is.
Distance and elevation gain for the 3 hikes are below. Note that I took a circuitous route up to Apache Maid Mountain, otherwise the distance would have been quite a bit less.
Moqui/Blue Ridge: 1.6 miles with an ARG of 102 feet
Apache Maid Mountain: 10.1 miles with an AEG of 1,181 feet
Mormon Lake LO: 1.3 miles with an AEG of 236 feet
Stats above are sum of these. |
|
Wildflowers Observation Substantial
There were lots of wildflowers, especially on the hike to Apache Maid Mountain. |
|
| _____________________
| Civilization is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there |
| | |
|
|
|
Route Editor
Route Scout
