Humphreys - Weatherford - Kachina Loop

Approach

Snowbowl Parking Lot - Humphreys Trailhead

Route Description

7/21/01: My buddy and I made it to the top in 2 hr, starting at 8:30 am. On the way up, several people said they turned back at the saddle due to high winds. We found the winds actually died down from the saddle to the peak and the top was perfect.

We felt really good on the way down and (11:15am) started up the Weatherford trail. Found ourselves trail-running shortly after a small elevation gain from the saddle to Agassiz. Stopped for lunch (12:15) at Fremont saddle. A little bit further, we saw an old yellow car crashed just downhill from the trail which was cool. Continuing down the Weatherford, it started getting boring. Then it got VERY boring. We would have been trail running again for this part, which would have made it much nicer, but my toe had gotten jammed from a too small shoe, and one of my buddy's knees was giving him some pain.

After two hours of total boredom (2:15 pm), we came to the well-signed Kachina trail. Some of the accounts I had looked at on the web made me think it might be hard to find it, but it was very easy.

At the start of the Kachina, a scrawled paper sign said to watch out for fallen trees from the recent fire. So we perked up a bit, thinking that there might be some interesting fire damage to review. But by the time we got to it, which was about half way back to SnowBowl, we were too shot to really appreciate it very much. And it wasn't very interesting. Just a bunch of small fire-splotched areas along about a mile of trail. This last leg seems like it just slowly keeps going up. You hardly notice the times it goes down. We were really happy to get back to his truck at 4:15 pm.

I think this loop (about 18 miles) could be a real blast with trail running the entire Weatherford and the downhill parts of the Kachina. I look forward to doing it again and it could get to be a regular for me if I were lucky enough to move to that fantastic town of Flagstaff.

Essential Gear

No special equipment. Need shoes that are plenty long and need to lace them up a little bit tighter at the peak. Two quarts of water each was just right. His mom's sandwiches were excellent.

Miscellaneous Info

If you have information about this route that doesn't pertain to any of the other sections, please add it here.