Tom Rankin
Well-known member
For the High Pointers out there, here is my report.
We spent the previous afternoon and evening in Flagstaff, located at about 6,900'. This was a lot higher than the previous night spent at 1,400', in California. It might have been better to acclimate another day, but the weather window favored the next day, so we went for it. If you want to spend an extra day acclimating, visit the Grand Canyon, just a 90 minute drive from Flagstaff and still just as high at the rim as Flagstaff.
Humphrey's, at 12,633' in elevation, is considered the easiest of the Western High Points. The normal trailhead is from a parking area just below the Arizona Snow Bowl, a ski resort, where the elevation is about 9,300'. Any car can drive to this parking lot. It is very large and has 3 outhouses. It is easily reached from Flagstaff by a drive of 25-30 minutes.
We arrived just before 7 AM and geared up. There is a large sign just above the parking lot with a crude trail map of the area. We took a photo of it just in case. The sign warns of bears and mountain lions but we saw no evidence of either. The temperature was a little below 50F.
Right from the beginning we were sucking wind. Our legs never felt tired, as we are well accustomed to hikes of this length (9.8 miles round trip) and elevation gain, but not at this elevation. We took it pretty slow. We normally can climb 1000-1200' per hour, but on this day we were doing 700'. At least, we were able to continue this pace all the way to the top. The trail starts out over a grassy ski meadow, but soon enters the woods and starts an endless series of switchbacks. You would think each of these switchbacks would gain elevation, but NO!
Some of them actually lost a small amount of elevation! There are no actual trail markers, but the path is very obvious.
We continued on for 4 hours, until we gained the saddle with Aggasiz. This peak is apparently off limits, even though it is lower then Humphrey's. At this point you make a sharp left at the trail junction and soon after, you are above tree line. After this point, tall sticks mark the trail about every 300-500', with a cairn once in a while substituted for the sticks.
Once above tree line, the trail continues up and over 3 false summits. The elevation loss on each is minimal, only 10-30', but it feels like a lot more when you are out of breath. By the last few bumps, we were only walking about 50 vertical feet between rest stops. After an hour, we finally made it to the last cairn, with the summit cone reaching up the last 60 or so feet. We struggled up and staggered to the top. Never was the phrase 'conquer the mountain' LESS true! The mountain had allowed us to reach the top. It was exhilarating, but humbling at the same time. Amazingly, the breeze was quite light, and a lot of bugs were annoying us while we had a snack and chatted with a few other hikers. The temp at the top was around 55-60.
The hike down was uneventful, and went much quicker, but we still felt the elevation if we tried to go too fast. We spent 8.5 hours on total doing the hike, including the break at the top and many rest and photo stops. Actually they were all rest stops!
This seemed like the perfect time to climb Humphrey's. An early bird hiker warned us that there was some ice at the top, but we never saw any.
Oh by the way, Flagstaff has at least 3 excellent brewpubs!
We spent the previous afternoon and evening in Flagstaff, located at about 6,900'. This was a lot higher than the previous night spent at 1,400', in California. It might have been better to acclimate another day, but the weather window favored the next day, so we went for it. If you want to spend an extra day acclimating, visit the Grand Canyon, just a 90 minute drive from Flagstaff and still just as high at the rim as Flagstaff.
Humphrey's, at 12,633' in elevation, is considered the easiest of the Western High Points. The normal trailhead is from a parking area just below the Arizona Snow Bowl, a ski resort, where the elevation is about 9,300'. Any car can drive to this parking lot. It is very large and has 3 outhouses. It is easily reached from Flagstaff by a drive of 25-30 minutes.
We arrived just before 7 AM and geared up. There is a large sign just above the parking lot with a crude trail map of the area. We took a photo of it just in case. The sign warns of bears and mountain lions but we saw no evidence of either. The temperature was a little below 50F.
Right from the beginning we were sucking wind. Our legs never felt tired, as we are well accustomed to hikes of this length (9.8 miles round trip) and elevation gain, but not at this elevation. We took it pretty slow. We normally can climb 1000-1200' per hour, but on this day we were doing 700'. At least, we were able to continue this pace all the way to the top. The trail starts out over a grassy ski meadow, but soon enters the woods and starts an endless series of switchbacks. You would think each of these switchbacks would gain elevation, but NO!
Some of them actually lost a small amount of elevation! There are no actual trail markers, but the path is very obvious.We continued on for 4 hours, until we gained the saddle with Aggasiz. This peak is apparently off limits, even though it is lower then Humphrey's. At this point you make a sharp left at the trail junction and soon after, you are above tree line. After this point, tall sticks mark the trail about every 300-500', with a cairn once in a while substituted for the sticks.
Once above tree line, the trail continues up and over 3 false summits. The elevation loss on each is minimal, only 10-30', but it feels like a lot more when you are out of breath. By the last few bumps, we were only walking about 50 vertical feet between rest stops. After an hour, we finally made it to the last cairn, with the summit cone reaching up the last 60 or so feet. We struggled up and staggered to the top. Never was the phrase 'conquer the mountain' LESS true! The mountain had allowed us to reach the top. It was exhilarating, but humbling at the same time. Amazingly, the breeze was quite light, and a lot of bugs were annoying us while we had a snack and chatted with a few other hikers. The temp at the top was around 55-60.
The hike down was uneventful, and went much quicker, but we still felt the elevation if we tried to go too fast. We spent 8.5 hours on total doing the hike, including the break at the top and many rest and photo stops. Actually they were all rest stops!
This seemed like the perfect time to climb Humphrey's. An early bird hiker warned us that there was some ice at the top, but we never saw any.
Oh by the way, Flagstaff has at least 3 excellent brewpubs!
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