With the Forest Service having closed so many hiking areas because of fire precautions, finding great places to hike had become a challenge. Then I noticed an article in the Arizona Republic, titled Flagstaff hike: Rogers Trail hike is a lovely walk in the woods, by Mare Czinar, describing a great new 5.4-mile trail southwest of Flagstaff. Voila!

The Rogers Trail runs from the Loop Trail near Fort Tuthill County Park to the Gold Digger Trail in Rogers Lake Natural Area, which is another county park. The Gold Digger Trail appeared to be a 4-mile loop with one mile running along a lakeshore, and that seemed too good to miss, so I planned the hike to start the Gold Digger Trail, turn onto the Rogers Trail for three miles, and then return to the Gold Digger Trail and finish the loop.

Because neither I nor the club had ever hiked either trail, the day was definitely exploratory.

The weather forecast called for 80% chance of thundershowers, but for eight of us, at least, that was no deterrent. Reaching the trailhead required driving about five miles of gravel road but it was in good shape and passable by all cars. Ralph reconnoitered the route during the preceding week and provided an excellent set of directions.

The trailhead serves not only a trail but also a wildlife viewing deck, with telescopes and overlooking the lake. Unfortunately, however, the lake was dry and the only wildlife we saw was a herd of cows grazing on the grass that’d grown on the exposed lake bed.

The start of the trail is marked as the Two Spot Trail, a shorter loop, but the map showed that trail connecting to the Gold Digger after a short distance and so it did.

The trails all day were wooded, rolling, not very rocky, and decidedly pleasant. About halfway out a fine rain came in, leading about half the group to don raingear. Then a half hour of that, the rain became an actual shower and the rest of us geared up. The shower cleared up after another half hour, though, and there was no significant rainfall the rest of the hike.

There’s a lookout point about a mile into the Gold Digger Trail, but it wasn’t very high and no one seemed interested so we bypassed it. Nevertheless, this might be something to add in future hikes.

The junction with the Rogers trail had only a blank marking post but it was in the right place—about 2.2 miles into the hike—and it seemed to be heading in the right direction so we tried it. Later trail markers confirmed we were on track.

We passed two structures on our way out. The first looked like a covered picnic ramada but with no parking lot and no road nearby that didn’t seem right. Then we noticed rain gutters leading to a large tank and decided the idea was to catch the rain and store it, most likely for animals. If any animals were around, though, we certainly didn’t see them.

The second was a small group of buildings, not all of which seemed to be in use. There was a tall antenna tower but only one antenna, seemingly ruling out the idea of a relay station. There were large cabinets with, “Danger High Voltage” signs on them, but no humming sounds and no motors running nearby.

Then we spotted a large steel tube that was about four feet in diameter, sticking out about three feet above the ground, and locked. It seemed that the tube probably continued underground, perhaps to service some pumping equipment, and so our final verdict was that the whole installation might be a pumping station. Or a UFO meeting place. Or a missile silo. But no, probably a pumping station.