Are We lost Yet?

It’s going to be highs of room temperature in Phoenix for the foreseeable future. I may never wear a jacket in daylight in this city ever again.

This weekend: go to the Superstitions – anywhere in the Superstitions.

Need specifics? Go do Bluff Springs Loop

From the Tonto Guide (Day and Overnight Hikes: Tonto National Forest).

(The cover photo was taken somewhere in that area.) (Not by me.)

Now, the behind-the-hike for Five Star Hikes in Flagstaff and Sedona:

Bell Rock and Broken Arrow

DATE: 10/23/10

COMPANIONS: Ben + his friend

START TIME: 1:45p

END TIME: 7:45p

ACTUAL MILES: 10.6

OFFICIAL MILES: 10 mile car shuttle

LOW ELEVATION: 4190 at TH

HIGH ELEVATION: 4600 at 9 miles

2^nd Hike on 11/17/10

This was originally conceived as a single hike car-shuttle – and if you do that it’s 5 hours of awesome – but start in the morning. You can intuit from my end time what happened.

We started at Bell Rock Trailhead south of Bell Rock, and ended the day (or rather started the evening) at Morgan Road Trailhead at the north terminus of Broken Arrow.

The reason this became two hikes in the book, though, is that both trails are popular enough and cool enough on their own to warrant separate entries. And the format calls for easier hikes rather than adventure marches.

We got lost at Chicken Point. I mention a side trail in the Broken Arrow description called the Jim Bryant Trail. I discovered that because we went a good mile into the wilderness following those scattered cairns across the ravines before we concluded that whatever trail this was – it wasn’t Broken Arrow. I found its name on a map later.

By the time we found our way to Chicken Point, the sun was going down in one direction and clouds were gathering in the other. We ended up following the jeep road back to the trailhead – roads are much easier to follow in the dark than trails.

A few weeks later I came back for Broken Arrow, and other than some camera difficulties (my camera died completely soon afterwards) the hike went well.

Why yes – there is a you tube video, mostly chronicling the hike between the two trails.

Bell Rock to Broken Arrow on YT