Flagstaff hiking, history come together at Weatherford Trail

Traveling around northern Arizona’s canyons and mountains, I sometimes wonder: What would this place be like without a road going through it?

Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona is a good example. Just over a century ago, it was home to grizzly bears that drank from a clear-running stream. If you dared, you went into Oak Creek Canyon on horseback or foot.

Nowadays the highway in Oak Creek gets clogged with impatient drivers “visiting” what has long since become a tourist hot spot, and the Forest Service regularly closes the creek due to unsafe levels of fecal contamination.

I use roads as much as anyone. But when confronted with the idea of hiking just another stretch of asphalt wilderness, I opted for the high road and chose the Weatherford Trail.

In 1926, this route north of Flagstaff began as a road leading 10 miles and 4,000 feet up to the highest ridges of the San Francisco Peaks. Entrepreneur John W. Weatherford (you can still eat at the hotel he built in downtown Flagstaff – the Weatherford) made such a drive possible by throwing 10 years and many dollars at the mountain with hopes of attracting motoring tourists to Flagstaff. “Drive to the summit of Arizona’s highest peaks!” the slogans screamed.

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INTERACTIVES

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Thanks to the Great Depression, money for leisure travel dried up soon after Weatherford completed the project, and so did the business. The Forest Service bought the road for $15,500 in 1942 and wisely closed it to vehicular traffic, choosing instead to rehabilitate it as a hiking trail. No doubt Northern Arizona’s Native American tribes such as the Navajo and Hopi, who consider the Peaks to be sacred, were supportive of the decision.

As I set out on the Weatherford one warm July afternoon, I quickly discover one good thing about old roads – they can make for great hiking. Weatherford engineered his thoroughfare to have modest grades suitable for Model Ts. This means the entire trail is gradual, an easy hike for most. And the one-way, 8.7-mile route tends to follow ridges with excellent views.

Starting from Schultz Tank at 8,000 feet, the Weatherford eases two miles north through ponderosa pines toward looming Fremont Peak. At the 2-mile mark, the boundary for the Kachina Peaks Wilderness appears: No mechanical means of transport allowed herein. Not what old Weatherford had in mind, but I’m thankful to walk his route in silence.

The trail ascends the west rim of Weatherford Canyon (obviously Mr. Weatherford was fond of his name), a wide, several-hundred-foot-deep forested draw filled with Douglas fir, spruce and quaking aspen. Richly green ferns carpet the slopes amongst lichen-covered boulders, and purple lupines line the trail. It smells sugary in these high alpine woods, and I take a deep breath of the moist air.

The trail passes the junction with the Kachina Trail (which leads about 6.5 miles west toward the Arizona Snowbowl) and climbs above Weatherford Canyon along a series of switchbacks. At each elbow in the trail, grassy meadows appear where it is easy to imagine an old-fashioned picnic lunch spread out on a blanket shared with friends. I am alone, so I continue upward. The grade is so moderate that I’m hardly breaking a sweat.

The views of Flagstaff and the foothills below become more and more intriguing as the Weatherford climbs, but I’m completely absorbed by the view in the other direction as I hit the 6-mile mark at Doyle Saddle (also called Fremont Saddle). Here the Inner Basin of the San Francisco Peaks falls away in a spectacle of volcanic walls, aspen groves and meadows that lead downward to numerous cinder cones of the San Francisco volcanic field, and then, miles beyond, toward the red sandstones of the Painted Desert.

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the weather, as it’s monsoon season and lightning has killed hikers on the exposed ridges up above. But the clouds have parted, and I decide to continue.

From Doyle Saddle, the trail courses along the northern slopes of Doyle and Fremont Peaks, passing the Fremont-Agassiz saddle where the rusty remains of Allen Doyle’s tourist camp are strewn about (Doyle was an early guide). Near 11,000 feet, the forest thins to a sparse grove of twisted, ancient bristle cone pines, and then, even these disappear. The Forest Service forbids hiking off-trail above the tree line (11,400 feet) to protect the fragile Senecio Franciscanus plant.

Finally, I am standing 12,000 feet above sea level and overlooking the Agassiz-Humphrey’s saddle, where the Weatherford Trail ends. In the distance to the south, Oak Creek Canyon appears as a gash in the Mogollon Rim.

I can imagine the noise and hubbub of traffic there, but right now, in the silence of these mountain heights where only foot travel is permitted, I turn around and look instead at the grandeur I’ve experienced. It would have been much easier to ride here in a Model T, but I prefer the ache in my legs and feet.

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>>Email the editor @aklaw@zoniereport.com.