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Pinetop-Lakeside, Arizona (May 20, 2021) I invited my hiking buddies, Mark and Oland, to join me on a hike this morning. This was the first time they hiked together – actually, the first time they met one another – and it was “love at first hike.” Well, maybe not love (!)…but they talked with one another as old friends would throughout our two-hour hike. Don’t you love when that happens?! I know I do.
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I first hiked the Country Club trail 18 years or so ago – the first or second time that Debra (my wife) and I vacationed in the White Mountains. The trail came back to me as I hiked it this morning, and I enjoyed it this hike as much as I did all those years ago.
Mark, Oland, and I met at the trailhead, which is located near the eastern end of Pinetop off Sky Hi Road about two miles north of AZ 260. The 7 a.m. temperature was 57 degrees. There was a slight wind (before we were done, the wind gusted to more than 20 mph) and a few clouds in the deep blue sky. In other words, the weather was picture perfect for our hike.
Mark, Oland, and I met at the trailhead, which is located near the eastern end of Pinetop off Sky Hi Road about two miles north of AZ 260. The 7 a.m. temperature was 57 degrees. There was a slight wind (before we were done, the wind gusted to more than 20 mph) and a few clouds in the deep blue sky. In other words, the weather was picture perfect for our hike.
The trail, which we hiked counterclockwise, is a 3.25 miles loop rated “easy” by AllTrails…and it was. There was little elevation change – basically flat for much of the way – and few rocks and no boulders on the trail. It is a great trail for beginners (hikers and mountain bikers alike)…but there are many side and connector trails that more experienced hikers might include on their hike to increase “difficulty,” adding miles and/or elevation change to their hike.
We added the Pat Mullen Mountain spur trail to our hike this morning, which we reached 2.5 miles from the trailhead. Some refer to this as the “Huff ‘n Puff” option because the mountain trail rises four hundred feet or so (from the Country Club trail) over the half-mile distance to the summit. I will admit that I breathed more deeply as I hiked up the trail, but I certainly did not huff OR puff! As an aside, the mountain tops out at about 7,600 feet above sea level.
The Country Club trail meandered through a forest of mostly ponderosa pine, although we saw plenty of alligator juniper (named for their distinctive bark that resembles the skin of an alligator) and Gambel oak.
The Country Club trail meandered through a forest of mostly ponderosa pine, although we saw plenty of alligator juniper (named for their distinctive bark that resembles the skin of an alligator) and Gambel oak.
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In places we saw small stands of “young” pine and oak, many just a few feet high. Oland thought that this was due to “thinning,” whereby some larger trees were removed to make room for “new growth” and improve the health of the forest. While this was not unique to the forest here, I have not encountered new growth of this magnitude on other hikes I have been on. It was great to bear witness to the regeneration of this forest!
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A mile and a quarter from the trailhead, I spotted a tall ponderosa pine that leaned at a very severe angle, its roots still firmly planted in the ground. How it had not toppled, I do not know! There was a unique rock cairn a bit further up the trail – rocks of all sizes piled against and atop a tree stomp. Ingenious! I added a small rock to the pile.
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We came to the first of two gates about 1.75 miles from the trailhead. (The second gate was a half-mile further along on the trail.) A nearby sign warned that cattle grazed in a pasture beyond the gate – the Whitcomb Springs Meadow – from June through October. It would be fun to see cattle grazing just outside this forest, so I put a reminder on my calendar to come back late June.
I read that the view from the top of Pat Mullen Mountain was scenic – that I might catch a glimpse of Mount Baldy to the east (over 11,000 feet above sea level) and some of the many cinder cone volcanoes in the area. I saw neither. Perhaps I did not stand in the right spot…but I think it had more to do with how dense the forest was at the top of the mountain. As I climbed the spur, though, I did see an almost unbroken tract of ponderosa pine – part of the more than 2.4-million-acre Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, the largest contiguous stand of ponderosa pine forest in the world.
It was an effortless one-mile hike from the bottom of the spur to the trailhead. Start to finish, we were done in under two hours – not a quick pace, I know, but we stopped many times so that I could snap the photos I have shared here with you, and stayed for a while on the summit of Pat Mullen Mountain to shoot the breeze and “smell the roses."
This was a fun hike for Mark, Oland, and me – a great opportunity for three hiking buddies to enjoy each other’s company in the great outdoors!
This was a fun hike for Mark, Oland, and me – a great opportunity for three hiking buddies to enjoy each other’s company in the great outdoors!