11:53 a.m. on August 31, 2011 (EDT)
Looking back down at Mt Elden from about 9000 feet up the Weatherford Trail our first afternoon.
A insect pupa sits atop a toadstool along the trail
At 9,800 feet even Lupine looks like bushes.
Because we left the Trailhead at 3 pm in the afternoon we hiked till 630 (30 minutes before sundown) and only made it to 10,000 feet, 800 feet below our goal of Doyle Saddle.
The next morning we left our first camp and hiked the remaining 800 feet to Doyle Saddle.
We sat up camp 2 in a structure built of pine and fir logs near the Saddle. My friend Ron bends over at left.
First view northwest of the San Francisco Peaks Mt Humphreys in center still nearly 2000 feet higher than Doyle Saddle.
After setting up camp 2 we headed for Mt Humphreys along the 10,000 ' high trail.
A single alpine flower in a sea of older blooms measures but a 1/4 inch across.
Volcanic Ash pillars erodes slowly away near Agassiz Pass. Cinder cones and Sunset Crater in the distance.
The trail meanders trhu eroding volcanic rock and winter stunted trees around 11,000'. Humphreys looming a couple miles away on the rim.
L-R Doyle and Fremont Peaks are now behind us.
The Inner Basin comes into view below where the peaks collapsed like Mt St Helens 100s of thousands of years ago.
More evidence of the peaks past history stands in lava rock and lava domes inside the strato-volcanos inner basin.
Humphreys and lesser peaks stand abover the Inner Basin with pine and fir forest below.
A exposed vein of quartz in the ancient black/grey rock near 11,500'.
Here at 11,500' the lava rock erodes like shale due to annual freezing and thawing. While Flagstaff is often dry of any weather in winter the top of the peaks are covered by as much as 100 inches in December/January.
Even here at nearly 11,800 feet flowers hold a nitch in the rocks.
100 year old equipment and a stove rust away at nearly 12,000 feet.
At 12,000' even mushrooms manage to pop up thru the rock after heavy summer rains.
A trail closure warns of a huge fine. This comes from the top of the AZ Snowbowl ski area just to the right. Closed in the latter part of the 20th century it used to be an easy way to see Humphreys by taking the chairlift up to 11,400 feet then hiking the remaining 1263 feet to it summit.
This was as high as I got arount 12,000' Looking back at Doyle Peak and the cinder cones including Sunset Crater on the left (last erupted about 1000 years ago, the youngest volcano in Arizona)
My hiking friend did summit Humphreys while I waited at 12,000'. My legs and lungs could go no further.
On the way back down to camp 2 we pass the volcanic rock here shown covered at its base with lichen on it northern most side. Fremont Peak on the right, Shultz and Doyle Peaks behind it.
At between 11,000 and 12,000 feet along the trail there is little vegetation, just a few stunted trees,alpine flowers and lichens.Agassiz and Fremont Peaks above R-L.
The views at Fremont Pass were obsrtucted by trees looking SW away from the peaks.
While the Inner Basin is clear until you look to the horizon. Lava domes are scattered in its bottom. Sunset Crater looms in the upper middle.
Back at camp 2 the sun starts to sit shading the tents in the camp shelter.
Just before darkness sets in the sun sinks behind Humphreys from Doyle Saddle.
Early the next morning the sun paints the clouds above Doyle Peak with light.
And early light falls on eastern Arizona covered in fog.
To the NW the higher Fremont Peak and seen as lower Agassiz Peak and ridge catch the suns rays at dawn.
Mt Humphreys and the larger lava domes too bask in the light of sunrise.
The main ridge of the San Francisco Peaks with Fremont, Agassiz, Agassiz Pass and Humphreys loom on the horizon at sunrise.
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