With most of the club’s favorite trails near Flagstaff closed because of fire danger, finding a place to hike was a little harder than usual. Passage 29 (used to be 30, renumbered) of the Arizona Trail south of Lake Mormon Village was open, though, and had been a good hike two years before. So our planned route was northbound from the Gooseberry Springs Trailhead to the Navajo Springs Trailhead near the village.

Getting everyone to the trailhead was a more interesting exercise than usual. Out of fourteen hikers, we had five carpool from Target in Fountain Hills, four carpool directly from the east valley, two drive out from Flagstaff, one drive from Prescott Valley, and two arrive by foot.

The two by foot were Scott and Ken, who started from the Navajo Springs Trailhead and hiked southbound for 9.5 miles to meet us at Gooseberry Springs. Then they turned around and hiked with the group back to Navajo Springs for a double dose of adventure!

Mary and Ralph drove out from Flagstaff in separate cars. Mary left hers in the village and then carpooled to Gooseberry Springs with Ralph. That way, after the hike she could drive the drivers back to Gooseberry Springs to pick up their cars. That saved us from waiting for a car shuttle at the start of the hike.

Tamar, Mary, and Ann press on. [photo by Li]

After a while we noticed that we hadn’t seen any Arizona Trail signs for a while, and so I checked the Arizona Trail app on my phone, and sure enough we were south of our intended route. We could have backtracked or bushwhacked back to the trail, but by then it was starting to rain and everyone wanted to finish the hike as quickly as possible. The map showed that the forest road led to Lake Mary Road which in turn led to Mormon Lake Village so that’s the route we choose.

The forest road was muddy and the mud stuck to our shoes, but eventually we did arrive at Lake Mary Road, and from there, walking on the shoulder at least, knocked the mud back off.

It was still raining as we approached Mormon Lake Lodge, which offered an overhang and shelter. And of course the rain stopped just about the time we got there. Oh well.

Mary gave all the drivers a ride back to their cars and then once we were all reunited most of us stopped for lunch at Mormon Lake Lodge and its rustic, near-historic atmosphere. The food was only average and when it came time to pay the service was slow, but we still enjoyed the visit.

See you next time!