Grandpa Does the Arizona Trail: Passage 29

[Note:  the passage numbering begins to change again here.  Originally, this was Passage 30 (Mormon Lake), with two parts, South and North, about 36 miles long).  Now, the North section is the Anderson Mesa section.]

We've apparently hiked (and biked) this section on several dates:

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July 10 and 11, 2023

Setting up camp at the Double Springs Campground, on these two days, we out-and-back hiked the section of trail around Mormon Lake, to a bit over half a mile past Marshall Spring south, and two miles past the passage endpoint at Mayflower Spring north. The weather, though hot in the sun, was generally comfortable. Most of the route is smooth trail, with few climbs or descents or rocky sections. The flora is pine woods, mostly ponderosa (a few spruce, a few piñon pines), punctuated by open parks, like much of the rest of the Mogollon Rim. The fauna, on the other hand . . . we saw many deer, both singly and in herds, and on the 11th, we spooked what looked to be a herd of elk on the hillside, bulkier and noisier than deer, but not so noisy as cattle. Just a few glimpses of dark brown coats and white tail undersides and rumps. Mayflower Spring was running.

On July 14, we attempted to complete the passage by hiking from where I thought we had stopped in September 2009, to just south of Marshall Spring. The problem was getting there. I had (as described below) mistakenly estimated that we'd gotten as far north as Navajo Spring (trail mile 527.6 in the AZT mapbook), which we tried to reach by car. Beware Forest Road 219! We first tried to get in from the east. After about 1/2 mile of decent gravel and dirt, the road turned into a rock garden that, even with me driving our XTerra in 4wd, we felt we couldn't sustain for the couple of miles it would have taken to get to Navajo Spring. We then attempted to come in from the west side, using FR 91 to 219 on the other side. Imagine our surprise upon finding 219 (though signed for Mormon Lake in 4 miles) in even worse shape than on the west side. We hiked from the junction on 219 to the trail, about 1.8 miles up the road, then put in 2/10 of a mile north on the AZT.

August 28, 2005 (a short section around Mormon Lake.)  We tried to mountain bike north from the Double Springs campground toward Marshall Lake, and south from the campground to the southern end of the lake.  I believe that we probably biked a total of two miles north, and about a mile and a half south, to Wallace Spring.

Notes:

We hiked/mountain biked at least some of this stretch around Mormon Lake  North of Double Springs Campground, the ground is pretty rocky and hilly.  South of the campground, the trail follows hill contours around the lake, sometimes steep.

6 September 2009

Richard, Jeannie, Sarah, Chris, Ranger, me.

Allen Lake Landing [on the Lake Mary Road] to, as it turns out, the confluence of Forest Road 90H with the AZT, near La Negrita Tank.  Temperature circa 80 and clear for most of the day, clouding to threaten thunderstorms in the late afternoon.  We walked about 2 [actually 8, according to hiking partner Richard Duerden's more accurate notes] miles of the trail, to spare the dog, who was on medication for arthritis.

This trail is completely clear, sometimes follows an old railroad grade, and would be perfect for biking, except . . .

This was Labor Day Sunday, and it seemed like everyone with an ATV and a gun was out in the woods.  There was so much engine noise and gunshot sound that the dog was spooked, and it felt more like an urban than a wilderness walk.

There's water at an unnamed spring just northwest of the Forest Highway junction, and also at Patch Tank.  If one were doing a through-hike, one could easily find water, I think.

2023 Final Comment:

It turns out that between 2005 and July 2023, I have hiked virtually the whole of the new Passage 29. I now know that in 2009, we got farther north than I had thought, to about trail mile 529 (see above). That leaves me with less than a mile of distance between FR 90H, mentioned above, and just south of Marshall Spring, where we stopped on July 10, 2023. Maybe I'll hike that bit in the future, but otherwise, it's been adjudicated that I can call this passage hiked.

Here is the passage map: https://aztrail.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/29_MormonLake.pdf