The Highpoint of Arizona: Humphrey's Peak

Last night Noelle and I had a quiet night camping at the Freidlein Prairie dispersed camping area in the Coconino National Forest. We got a nice view of Agassiz Peak, part of the San Francisco Peaks we would hike in today, before the sun set.

This morning we woke up early, packed up our campsite and headed over to Arizona Snow Bowl to begin our hike up Humphreys Peak. The hike started out relatively easy.

The trail slowly ascended through the woods. There were some pretty pink wildflowers in bloom.

Up and up we went, into the wilderness area.

Treeline seemed to never come.

Eventually, we came to some stunted spruces and pines and shortly after came to "The Saddle" where we found ourselves above the trees.

There were lots of great views from the ridge above treeline.

It was a steep ascent up there.

Eventually we found ourselves on the summit, but because of the thick insect population we didn't spend much time up there.

We had just enough time to take summit photos.

Unfortunately, the photo of me on the summit that Noelle took didn't turn out. We quickly headed down from the summit.

We were soon back into the trees. The hike up Humphreys Peak was unusual in that, despite the fact that we climbed so high and hiked about 9 miles round-trip, we did not cross a single stream.

Soon we found ourselves in the meadow under the chairlifts and then back at the trailhead.  

 I'm so proud of Noelle, my pregnant wife who is headed into her 7th month of pregnancy and was still tough enough to hike up to the summit of a 12,000+ foot mountain!