This hike was a blast! Of wind, anyway. When we got to Flagstaff it was blowing fiercely and the sky socked in with clouds. My car’s thermometer read 45°. Us Trailblazers sure beat the heat this time.

The wind never let up. But instead of raining on us, the clouds began to part. We started to see patches of sunlight between the clouds. It became partly cloudy, then perfectly clear by the end of the hike.

Sixteen sagacious Trailblazers turned out. We left my car at USGS Observatory Trailhead on Anderson Mesa then drove to Horse Lake Trailhead to begin our one-way hike on the Arizona Trail.

The southern half of this hike is on roads, then the trail leaves the road to head west across range land and patchy forest.

After our picnic lunch north of Horse Lake, Bill led a side excursion to Youngs Canyon and Vail Lake. Wayne, Kay, Monika, Wendy and Becky stayed with me.

Heather followed Bill’s group but they got out of sight, so she re-joined my group. We continued hiking on passage 30 of the Arizona Trail, enjoying the wildflowers, and got to the USGS Observatory before the others.

Wayne rode back to Phoenix in my car.

“Dee will be glad to see you, and Jacque will be glad to see me,” I told Wayne as I left him at his car before driving on to my home in east Mesa. Got here at 8:30 PM.

This hike is described in Footloose from Phoenix, by Ted Tenny, pages 266-272.

Mt. Humphreys from Vail Lake.

We followed the road to were it crossed a creek. At that point we bushwhacked up the canyon. At “X4” we came across a pickup truck with a man repairing his chainsaw.

After crossing the road at “RX” Gary G. spotted some elk in the distance. We saw them a second time. Hard to get close wearing red shirt, but Bill got a picture just as they spooked.

Gary spotted newborn rabbit still wet and wiggling. We stopped for a second lunch on a scenic rocky wooded bluff over looking Vail Lake. After lunch we came across a bone collection. Young elk?

We continued our off trail hiking and after crawling under a fence we spotted the reflective dome of a telescope. Most of us followed a road as it wrapped southward paralleling the fence that contained long tubes.

We stopped for one last view of Lake Mary and valley below before rounding the fence and heading to the parking lot.