Mount Trumbull is a broad mountaintop located way way out in the middle of nowhere in northwest Arizona, on the already isolated Arizona Strip. It's located near the famed Toroweap Overlook along the Colorado River, within the western reaches of the Grand Canyon National Park. Very few people venture this far out mainly since the closest paved road is over 50 miles away near Fredonia, and just getting to Fredonia is itself an all-day haul from most of Arizona. The so-called Arizona Strip is the section of Arizona north of the Grand Canyon and south of Utah. It is physically connected to the rest of Arizona's road net by two bridges, and most people who come to the Strip do so mainly to go to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The rest of the Strip is vacant, isolated, undeveloped and for the most part, unpopulated. I have lived in Arizona for 13 years as of this writing and even so had only been to the North Rim once, back in 1996, and no further than that. It's been a big blank spot for me otherwise. So, with the school year over, Beth and I decided to visit this great unknown land to the north. We nominally chose an overnight at Toroweap as our destination, with a hike up Mount Trumbull set for the following day.

From Chandler we drove up to Page and stayed at a nice old hotel for the night, visited by the hotel owner's two big kitties. The next day we drove on to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, but some of our hiking plans were scuttled due to snow that still lingered, so we ended up just walking the grounds of the lodge area, checking out the overlooks, getting a lunch, and trying to avoid an obnoxious New York couple who thought they were the most special people on earth. This turned out to be an amusing tale- we came upon them quite innocently at one of the overlooks; they had both set up their super-high-end cameras and tripods while at the same time telling everyone in general but no one in particular how much their cameras cost (tens of thousands of dollars), why an orange filter is best for black and white, and why some guy is going to run down his battery if he isn't careful. Harmless yammerers, we thought. About 20 minutes later while at the Visitors Center, we encountered them again as they were trying in vain to gain access to some roads that had not been plowed. He tried to explain that he understands that they close the roads to normal traffic, but that he's a world-famous photographer and has a high-clearance truck and knows how to use it (big deal), and that he should be allowed to go on these closed roads. There, he crossed the line from harmless weenie to annoying weenie. The ranger stuck to her guns, smiled and said no every chance she got. Then, wouldn't you know, we encounter them again! He was now boring the sandwich man at the cafeteria about his heroic 5-mile hike he did that morning and how his viewfinder 'proved' that the distance was actually longer, et cetera. They were like a bad smell, hard to get rid of and very annoying. Picture this all with a loud New Yack accent. We also learned, unavoidably, that they were headed out to Toroweap the next day ... so were we. Our dealings with these two were not done, it seemed. Well, other then them, we had a fine time at the North Rim but ended up back in Jacob Lake at our campsite earlier than planned. I'd hoped to visit the highpoint of the Kaibab Plateau. I'm special and have a high clearance truck and know how to use it. Even in 4wd-low all I could do was spin my wheels in the deepening snow. I think they should have let that guy and his wife go on the roads, just for the amusement of rescuing them afterwards!

The next morning we made the long drive out of Fredonia to Toroweap Overlook, but not before nabbing a confluence near Colorado City and checking out the town. The drive to the Overlook followed a dirt road, and was about 61 miles (said the sign; my odometer was about at 63). Incredible remote countryside. The only occasional hint of civilization was some fencing and maybe a cow corral. There is some ranching out here, but not much. It took two hours to get to the Toroweap Campground. It was nearing 100 degrees so we decided to get a spot, set up the tend and cool our heels for a few hours in the shade of a large weathered sandstone rock formation right beside our campsite. The campground was beautiful, etched into the dramatic rock formations below a peak known as Toroweap Point. I took a short hike. For more information about Toroweap, click here. About 5 p.m. we decided to drive the last mile to the Toroweap Overlook, which allows one to literally look straight down 3,000 vertical feet into the Colorado River, the only such place that can be done in the entire National Park. We figured the sun would be lower, the shadows more dramatic and the temperatures cooler, too. Who should we see? Mr New York Special Man and his wife, coming the other way. Along the narrow road I pulled to the side and stopped, then motioned for him to proceed. He then stopped beside me, rolled his window down and started to describe a flat he'd gotten while driving in. Not wanting to talk to him about flat tires, I started to idle forward. He got the hint. We didn't chat and he was on his way, probably sad that he didn't get to bore me for fifteen minutes. When Beth and I arrived at the overlook, we had the place to ourselves and we spent nearly two hours exploring the various overlooks and sitting in utter amazement at the views. We returned to our camp as the sun set into dusk. Again, please see our detailed report at this link

The next day (today) we awoke very early and made another trip to Toroweap, staying about 45 minutes, then started our drive out toward Mount Trumbull. It took about an hour to cover the 13 or so miles to the main junction north of Tuweep Ranger Station and the trailhead near the Nixon Springs Ranger Station (Tuweep is for the Grand Canyon National Park, Nixon Springs is a BLM outpost and within the newly-created Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument). The drive involves a bit of uphill gain as the road goes up and over a saddle within the Uinkaret Range. It's a pretty drive, going from grasses and low semi-desert scrub to a dense forest of pinon and fir. After the road crests (marked "Mount Trumbull"), we went another mile to just past the Nixon Springs Station and parked in the pullout at the signed trailhead, exactly 6,500 feet elevation according to the map. We spent awhile relaxing and getting ready and started in the trail just before 9 a.m. We were the only vehicle at the trailhead, which was chewed up and badly in need of a grader. We had a nice meadow across the way, but directly above us was a dense scape of forest on Trumbull's southern slopes. The weather was getting warm and the insects were out in force, but still, it was very nice, and a gentle breeze would periodically kick up and cool us off. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and probably not for hundreds of miles amid the high pressure that had parked over the southwest.

The route to the top is fairly straightforward. It's a good trail for about 2 miles, then a cairn and log-marker mix for the remaining 1/2 - 3/4 mile. The trail is not shown on the map, but it runs east at first then starts up a set of switchbacks that go mostly north, before resuming a strong east-northeast trend as it crosses the southern flanks of Mount Trumbull. Occasionally there were small switchbacks but for a solid mile it was straight, and often moderately steep. The entire mountain is an old volcanic remnant of some sort - the ground is clearly rubbly lava rock. As such the footing was sometimes loose due to the rounded rocks, all about the size of marbles. Nevertheless, we had no problems, took regular breaks and made it up onto the flatter summit plateau after slightly over an hour. We met up with an older German fellow coming down - he'd been camping near us at Toroweap and we saw his vehicle at the Ranger Station. He said he could not find the summit and had spent an hour wandering up top for it. After parting ways we continued in a slightly northish direction as the route continued among the now huge pine trees of the upper mountain. It was sometimes hard to discern the trail, often covered in a deep layer of pine needles, but we did okay, eventually losing the trail altogether, at which time we sat and took a break. Most resources I had read mentioned the top requiring some cross-country but it was "easy". The BLM sites say they won't construct a trail to the top to 'maintain the wilderness setting'. Maybe this is where Fritz got lost. I, ever so cocky, had not packed a GPS nor a compass and now was starting to regret it. Fortunately Beth spotted a rather hard-to-spot cairn and we were able to follow a fairly poor series of cairns deeper toward our objective, or so we assumed.

The remaining route took awhile because we had to stop at each cairn and try to spy the next cairn or some hint that we were on the right path. The forest is thick, with considerable underbrush and twigs. We found many piles of rocks that looked suspiciously like they had previously been simple cairns. Perhaps someone (the BLM?) was kicking them apart to preserve the wilderness setting? Whatever the case, we re-built them. Also, in places there were long logs that had been moved to act as a boundary of the path - literally the path was limned by limbs! So, once in the groove we did fine and made good forward progress, always uphill and finally coming upon a huge downed tree across the path. We walked around it, found the path again and ascended a small hill to surmount the very top. We had to wriggle around scrub oak and twiggy brush but we found the summit easy enough, marked by the Trumbull benchmark, two witness marks, and an old wooden triangulation apparatus. The summit was wooded but we had good views to the south toward Humphreys Peak, which we could barely see, and some decent views to the north, too. It was a nice setting - nothing spectacular, but nice. We had a lunch break and tried to avoid the bugs. Also, it was getting toasty. So we started down after about 30 minutes.

The hike down went pretty quickly, even when we took the steep rubbly bits slowly. Even so, we were back to the truck in slightly over an hour, for an exact 4-hour hiking time, including all rest stops. It was downright hot - well into the 90s - when we egressed. After changing into drier clothes we got moving and treated ourselves to the AC on high! The hike took us 4 hours, covered about 5 miles round trip with exactly 1,529 feet of gain. The log book suggests maybe 2-3 people a day hike the peak during high season. We were surprised to come across anybody! Although I can appreciate the BLM's desire to keep the upper mountain 'wildernessy', I think enough people hike the peak (despite the low numbers) that either a use-trail will be beaten into the ground or people will get off-route and lost, so if I were the King of the BLM, I would decree that the upper trail should maybe be tended a bit better.

Our drive out was a treat. We had nearly 70 miles of more remote, middle of nowhere dirt-road driving to go. The roads were all in good condition, at worst with ruts and some rocks and washboarding. We had one interesting section where the road hugged a cliff-side as it descended down the Hurricane Cliffs onto the Shivwits Plateau. We spent a few minutes exploring the old ghost town of Mount Trumbull, located about 15 miles west of the mountain itself. Not much to look at other than a rebuilt school house and miles and miles of vastness. We like that, too! In about two hours we were finally back on to paved roads in St. George, Utah, where we stayed the night at a cheapy but decent hotel. The shower was divine!

So what about our New Yorker photographers? We got their name from the log book at Toroweap and later googled him on the web. Well, it turns out he has a number of books to his credit! He may talk that talk in a very annoying manner, but he walks the walk, too. I won't mention his name. I'm sure he's a nice guy. It was an amusing experience with them, I'd say.