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| Backpack | 38.00 Miles |
4,000 AEG |
| | Backpack | 38.00 Miles | 3 Days | | |
| 4,000 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | I can't decide whether to wholeheartedly recommend this one or to suggest you stay away until the trail gets cleared up. I guess it just depends on your tolerance of bushwhacking, downed trees, burned over landscapes, and beautiful, remote, lush country. Anyway...
At the last minute on Friday we decided we needed to get away from the throngs of people who come up to Flagstaff every holiday weekend. There was only one post-Wallow-Fire triplog for this hike, but we figured things can't have gotten too much worse in 2 years, right?
We got a late start on Saturday and pulled into the trailhead at 3pm. There were no other cars--on a holiday weekend. This gave us a bit of trepidation. Maybe they knew something we didn't? Oh well, we were committed. We took off down the Foote Creek Trail, which was in okay shape--a bit overgrown with a number of blowdowns to go around. There were patches of healthy and burned forest, and we each got "thistled" a few times, but no major issues.
At P Bar "Lake," we turned off onto the Grant Creek Trail. As soon as we dropped below the ridgeline, the locust and raspberries got thick, and we had to zip on our pants legs. This area burned well, and the brush was dense in places, with some blowdowns, too. No trouble following the trail, but it was slow, thorny work. There were some beautiful views of the mountains east of the Blue River. We hiked up the Gila River and the mountains north of there on the CDT a few years back, and it was really great to see this area from the "other side."
Whoever recorded the official route for this hike took a side trip on the Grant Cabin Shortcut Trail (306) down to Grant Creek to get water. We lucked out and found a trickle of very clear water running where the Grant Creek Trail crossed the bottom of the drainage it follows. I wouldn't count on this water in dry times, but we were hiking shortly after all of those June rains. We camped in one of the nice stands of non-burned ponderosas near Paradise Park and hardly slept at all due to the freight train winds roaring through the treetops.
The next morning, we continued following the Grant Creek trail down...finally hitting Grant Creek after passing through mostly unburned ponderosas and PJ. Grant Creek had a good flow, and the valley bottom was lush, with lots of flowers and birds. In the valley, the trail was hard to follow in places, though we always managed to pick it up fairly quickly when we lost it. The valley is a patchwork of burned and unburned spots, with a good number of blowdowns to go over or around and some brushy spots. As we went further downstream, we saw more and more cow signs. In their infinite wisdom, the Forest Service seems to have decided that the letting cows eat the grass and trample the soils is somehow going to help the area to recover from the fire. Oy. But to their credit, the Forest Service has recently logged out the lowest 1-2 miles of the Grant Creek trail (though it looked like new trees had fallen since the trail work was done).
We hit the Blue "River," which was maybe 3 inches deep, around noon. Knowing that a roadwalk was in store, we'd brought our umbrellas, which were lifesavers on this hot day. Next came the long, hot slog up the Steeple Trail. I really have nothing good to say about this trail. The lower part was hot and exposed. The upper part, along KP and Steeple Mesa, was 100% burned over. I think we went over 4 miles at one point without seeing a living tree near the trail. And the route of this trail is absolutely moronic--the trail follows an old road and a fenceline the entire way. There is a beautiful canyon just west of the trail, but you almost never see it, just the fence. USFS should take advantage of the fire to relocate the trail to have some views and avoid the fence. The trail was mostly clear of brush and logs, but that was some pretty pointless hiking.
After seeing more dead trees than I ever hope to see again, we finally turned onto the KP trail that would take us most of the way back to US 191. The 5 or 6 miles from the Steeple Trail to KP creek itself were a very, very tough slog. The area is completely burned over, and the trail is invisible for much of the way, having succumbed to erosion and brush. There were some huge blowdowns to clamber over, too. Even with the GPS track (and very good navigational skills), we lost the trail as often as we found it. And the trail sections we did find were covered in waist-high brush a lot of the way. This was 1-1.5 mph territory for the most part.
We finally hit the creek around 7 pm, hoping to find a beautiful, unburned campsite. No such luck! Just more difficult and occluded trail. Thankfully, about a half mile of semi-bushwhacking later, we found a little flat spot and an old fire ring. Home for the night. The display of stars that evening was phenomenal, but we were too tired to notice much after the long day.
Day 3 started early (the goal was to get home in time to make our traditional post-backpacking pizza for dinner). We followed KP Creek upstream for almost the remainder of the hike. It's a really beautiful little valley--nice flow, steep, v-shaped walls, lots of birds and flowers. The trail was very difficult to follow early on and got better as we gained elevation and the burn intensity seemed to decrease. Still, the trail exacted its toll--I managed to snap my carbon-fiber hiking pole in half, and my wife fell backwards off of a huge log into the stream. But there were also nice stretches of trail above the stream and lush vegetation. We finally climbed out of the valley and did the easy (and very quiet--almost no traffic) roadwalk back to the car. The FS has sawed through most of the logs in the last couple of miles of trail before you get to the road.
If you've read this far, it's probably obvious why you shouldn't do this hike. Why do it? Solitude--we didn't see a single person in three days on trail (we did pass 2 people and 1 car on the Blue River roadwalk). Wildlife--I got within 10 feet of a coyote and 20 feet of a vulture. Judging from the scat and tracks, there is a VERY healthy predator population in this area. Scenery--lots of dramatic topography, especially in the lower elevations. Flowers--Grant Creek and especially KP Creek were crazy with flowers. I wasn't keeping a list, but I'd be surprised if we saw fewer than 50 species in bloom.
If you go, give yourself lots of time. We usually hike well over 3 mph, even while backpacking. This was almost completely sub-2 mph territory. |
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Wildflowers Observation Substantial
Tons of flowers along the streams, good numbers elsewhere. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
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