It was another busy weekend in the Verley house.  On Saturday, June 4, Mary's day care center held its Pre-School graduation ceremony, marking the end of Mary's pre-school years.  It was a fun little ceremony, in which the kids put on a recital to show their parents all of the cool things that they had learned so far in school.  They recited a patriotic poem "about our country's famous flag; its nickname is Old Glory"; they sang a song about the colors in both Spanish and in English, and they even sang their alphabet backwards!  To top it all off, the children wore little blue caps and gowns, with red sashes and golden tassels (all of the colors of their school). 

To celebrate Mary's successful completion of her pre-school program, we decided to take her on a day hike that following day...and little did we know that it would turn out to be one of the best hikes Mary had ever done!

While taking Web Design during the past semester at Paradise Valley Community College, I had announced that I was going to revamp Arizona Hiking Trails for my final project.  My classmates were very interested in my project, as some of them had visited our site for hiking ideas in the past.  One person in particular asked me if we had ever done the Inner Basin of the San Francisco Peaks.

"Why, no," I replied, so he proceeded to tell me that it was one of the most beautiful hikes that he had ever done.  He told me how to get there and described what an easy hike it was to get there.  I thanked him for the advice and kept it in mind to suggest to John.

Ironically, John had already been contemplating a hike of the Inner Basin, so when he brought it up as a possibility for our Sunday hike, I laughed and told him that it had been highly recommended to me by someone else.  Naturally, we decided to make it our destination that day.

The hike that we opted for was the Inner Basin Loop, which we had discovered in a book called Best Loop Hikes in Arizona, by Bruce Grubbs (a book that I had recently purchased at REI).  The Inner Basin Loop is a 4.3 mile long loop hike that follows along an old jeep road to the Inner Basin, to the Watershed Cabins.  There are a number of springs in the Inner Basin, and it is through these springs that water is piped into the City of Flagstaff.  To return from the Inner Basin, the trail then loops back along FR 146, or the Waterline Road, which is closed to all motor traffic except for City of Flagstaff vehicles.

To get there, we left the house at 6:00 a.m. and drove north on I-17 to Flagstaff.   (We, of course, stopped in Camp Verde to use the potty.)  Once in Flagstaff, we took I-40 to US 89.  En route, we stopped at a local Safeway to buy snacks and sandwiches for lunch, as we didn't have anything on hand to take with us when we left the house.  Once we had everything that we needed, we continued north on US 89, towards the turnoff for Lockett Meadow.

Naturally, we missed the turnoff the first time around.  According to old information that John had found, we needed to turnoff onto Lockett Meadow Road (FR 522), which was located about three-quarters of a mile north of the turnoff to Sunset Crater National Monument.  After driving by it twice, we did not find FR 522; instead, we found the Forest Access Road, directly across from the Sunset Crater turnoff.  That had to be it, so John turned off onto the road.  He followed that road for about a half of a mile...and soon came to the junction with FR 522!

Almost immediately, FR 522 began to climb, higher and higher, towards the Lockett Meadow Campground, 4.6 miles away.  The drive to get there wasn't too particularly spectacular, but once we arrived in Lockett Meadow...well, it just took my breath away!  Lined with snow-capped mountains and and newly-green aspen trees, Lockett Meadow was simply stunning: a beautiful place to camp, to hike, or just to enjoy nature at its finest. 

We parked at the day-use area and walked down the road to the Inner Basin Trailhead.  After sharing our traditional trail kisses, we then started hiking along the Inner Basin Trail...

...And Mary announced that she didn't want to hike!

Now, we are not quitters, and we knew full well that Mary was going to enjoy that hike, given the right motivation.  Simply put, we just had to make it fun and interesting for her.  That meant putting together games for her - games that would motivate her to keep hiking and forget her gripes.

For this hike, we played a couple of games with Mary.  One of the games involved using Mary's sense of touch to get her interested in the foliage all around the forest.  John encouraged her to touch the bark of a ponderosa pine to feel how rough it was.  Then, he brought her over to an aspen tree so that she could feel its smooth trunk.  He showed her the various lengths of pine needles among the different evergreens in the forest, from the long needles of the ponderosa pine, to the short, thick needles of the Douglas fir. 

And when she got tired of that, he gave her a big stick and let her "kill wombats".  We're not quite sure what it was that started her desire to kill these "ferocious" imaginary beasts (which were actually fallen logs), but she got a lot of giggles - and we got a lot of mileage - out of it.

After hiking for about forty-five minutes, we stopped for a break on a log that was laying alongside of the trail.  Next to this log, I saw that there was a spur trail, so I told John that I wanted to see where it went.  It wasn't long before I could hear rushing water; as I drew closer, I could see that there was a creek, gushing with water, parallel to the trail. 

We continued on up the trail, which, to that point was easy and very scenic.  The best part, however, was yet to come...

Another quarter of a mile up the trail, we started seeing large patches of snow on the canyon walls, on the other side of the creek.  Then, it wasn't long before we started finding patches of it along the trail!  Suddenly, there were spontaneous snowball fights and giggles galore as we tramped through the white stuff - after all, there's nothing like a little bit of snow to bring out the kid in you!

For the next half-mile, we hiked and we played and we hiked some more.  Mary was enjoying herself so much that she hiked stronger than she had ever hiked before, just because she was looking for more snow in which to play.

Finally, after an hour and a half of hiking, we arrived at the Inner Basin, where we found the Watershed Cabins, our destination.  There were two cabins there, both of which were marked with the City of Flagstaff logos and signs warning visitors to keep out.  The area surrounding the cabins was still covered in a blanket of snow, for the most part; and behind the cabins flowed the creek that we had been following.  Nearby, we discovered a kiosk containing information about the Inner Basin, as well as a trail register.  There was also a trail sign, indicating that the Inner Basin Trail continued off to the right.  (From there, the trail would continue to climb higher into the San Francisco Peaks over the next two miles; our portion of that trail, however, was done.)

As promised, there were a number of springs in the area.  Next to the cabins, we found a spigot, on which there was a sign indicating that it contained untreated spring water.  Behind the cabin, there was another spring, one that could be heard from a long way away.  It turned out to be the source of the creek that we had been following; there was a rather large pipe from which hundreds of gallons of water rushed forth into the creek. 

After spending some time exploring the Inner Basin, we crossed the creek and started the next leg of our loop hike, which would take us along the Waterline Road, also known as FR 146.  Since we were hiking along a Forest Service road, this part of the hike proved to be the easiest of all...and it was just as scenic as the Inner Basin Trail. 

The next 1.5 miles took us through areas that were still covered with snow, then into areas that were filled with aspens that were newly green.  Sometimes, the aspen groves were so thick that only green light could shine through them...and simply put, it was just beautiful!

Along the way, we discovered that we were walking along the boundary line of the Kachina Wilderness Area; every few yards or so, we saw wilderness signs posted up on top of the embankment.  Of course, since we had already done the Kachina Wilderness before, we decided that we didn't need to try to access the area.

Another thing that we discovered was that the area was very popular with bicyclists, as well as with hikers and backpackers.  During our hike, we encountered several groups of bicyclists, a pair of backpackers coming down from the Inner Basin Trail, and several day hikers.  So, it wasn't exactly the secluded hike that we were looking for...but at least it was beautiful.

The trail was also fun; along the way, we kept finding large patches of snow, in which we had more snowball fights.  We also continued Mary's game of killing wombats; every time we killed a wombat with our sticks, Mary giggled hysterically.

We stopped for lunch along the Waterline Road.  There weren't many places for us to sit down comfortably to have lunch, so we opted to just sit down right on the edge of the road to eat our Safeway sandwiches.  Since it wasn't very comfortable, we didn't stay very long; fifteen minutes later, we were hiking again.

It wasn't long after lunch that we came to an area where FR 146 turned sharply to the right; at the bend, we found that there was a side trail that went straight out onto the ridgeline.  We weren't sure what we were supposed to do, so we kept going along the forest road.  A few feet later, John announced that we were going the wrong way.  According to the GPS, we were no longer heading in the direction of the trailhead; instead, we were heading away from it. 

John took a moment to review the literature about the trail, and he found that we should have kept going straight along the ridgeline trail.  So, we backtracked and returned to the bend. 

The wide trail on which we had been hiking had now faded into a single-track foot path that followed along the ridgeline, on a dry, grassy hillside that overlooked the city.  Although this part of the trail was not nearly as pretty as the rest of the hike, we did enjoy the views that had opened up to us.  From that trail, we could see the cinder hills of Sunset Crater, including Lennox Crater, which we had hiked once before.  

We continued to march forward along the trail, although John was still not certain that we were on the right trail.  He was even more certain of that fact when he saw a couple and their dogs up on top of the ridge above us.  So, in order to check it out, he hiked up the ridge and told Mary and me to keep going along the footpath; eventually, he would meet up with us.  When he met up with us again, about a quarter of a mile later, he had concluded that we had been on the right trail all along.

Of course, that didn't stop him from taking a shortcut over the Sugarloaf.  Taking Mary with him, he decided to race me to the other side of the ridge.  He and Mary climbed up and over, while I continued on the footpath, around the base of Sugarloaf Mountain.  Naturally, I saw this as my opportunity to hike fast and strong, knowing that I had a better chance of beating him there.

Just as the book had described, the trail turned to the left at the base of Sugarloaf Mountain and continued around until it came to another forest road.  Without Mary, it didn't take me long at all to get there; in fact, my only set back was when I passed under a tree and got dive-bombed by an angry sparrow - I think perhaps I had gotten too close to her nest!  She buzzed my head, squawking furiously, then quickly returned to the tree.

When I arrived at the road, I waited around for John and Mary - they arrived about five minutes later.  Once we were all together again, we continued on as a group along the road. 

It wasn't long before that road took us right back to the campground and our fun-filled 4.3 mile-long hike was over.  By that time, Mary had reached her limit and was getting grumpy - a sure sign that she was ready for a nap.  Of course, the last little leg of our adventure didn't have any snow or wombats to keep it interesting for her, so we didn't have much to keep her going except promises that we would be done soon.

We finished our hike around 1:30 p.m., when we finally found our way back to the Jeep.  As soon as we all piled inside, we drove away from Lockett Meadow, towards US 89. (Mary, of course, was asleep before the Jeep could reach the pavement - she was completely tuckered out.)

And so ended another great Verley adventure.  After stopping in Flagstaff for some cold drinks for the road, we drove back to Phoenix that afternoon, all three of us content that we had done such a great hike.  I'm sure that it is a hike that we will do again... 

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