Kachina Trail

On Saturday, 03 September 2011, nine hikers from Cottonwood and Sedona, hiked on Kachina Trail between Snowbowl and Weatherford Trail. Three hikers left Cottonwood and stopped at Coco’s in Flagstaff for breakfast, four left Cottonwood and drove straight to Snowbowl and two left Sedona and drove straight to Snowbowl.

From Flagstaff, we took US-180 W and followed it about 7.0 miles before turning right onto Snowbowl Road. After another 6.2 miles on this road we arrived at the parking lot for Kachina Trail at the Snowbowl. The Kachina parking lot is located on the right just a few yards beyond the left turn into the Humphreys Trail parking lot. It is a long, narrow lot and we drove to the back end to park near the Trailhead.

The trail leads from the end of the parking lot immediately into a mixed aspen and conifer forest, a most pleasant place to hike on a hot summer day. We noted a sign at the trailhead proclaiming Kachina to be a “more difficult horse trail.” We decided that it must be so classified because of the ancient rock slides the trail navigated along the way.

Near the beginning of Kachina Trail at Snowbowl

The trail would its way through the forest, ascending and descending the small ridges along the slope of the mountain and crossing rocky areas along the way. Except for a few rocky portions the trail was fairly easy and we found that the elevation change for its entire length was less than 600 feet – 528 as measured on my GPS. However, because of the ridges we climbed a lot more than that.

Shortly after starting the hike we entered the Kachina Peaks Wilderness and then came to an opening in the forest made for a power line. We stopped there for a group photograph, courtesy of George and “Wally the tripod.” I really haven’t learned to use the time delay feature on my camera; however, George has it down pat and we always get a shot of the entire group (photographer included) when he is along.

Left to right: (standing) Miriam Sterling, Lila Wright, Betty Wolters, 

the author, Gordon Bice, Name Withheld; (kneeling) Akemi Tomioka, 

Kwi Johnson and George Everman – Photo by George with “Wally”

As we continued along the way, we had glimpses through the trees of Flagstaff and the country to the southwest of us laid out below. George, always on the alert, found a variety of mushrooms along the trail and lagged behind to examine them. There were also a number of flowers to be seen as we hiked and George and Akemi took time to examine a particularly handsome New Mexico Verbena (left – by George or Akemi) more closely.

About 2.5 miles from the trailhead we at a small meadow for a snack and a rest break.

George decided to explore arrangements for shelter should he ever be stranded in the area and found himself a handy hollow log.

George nicely sheltered from the elements- photograph by Akemi

Following our snack break, we hiked about another 1.5 miles and stopped again for a breather and to try our hands at a group art project. Each member of the group contributed an etching for the tree fungus art shown below. (NOTE: Once the etchings are made, and the fungus is allowed to dry, they become permanent and are often sold in tourist shops.)

Skyliner group art – photograph by George

Most of the party wanted to turn back at that point; however, I wanted to make a GPS track of the entire trail. After some discussion George, Akemi, Kwi, Gordon and I continued on while the others turned back.

The trail continued on through the forest, now interspersed with more frequent open meadows. We passed through areas that were filled with lush, waist-high ferns. The trail itself was pretty well trodden; however it was so overgrown by ferns and grasses that one could easily miss it looking from an angle.

Looking across a meadow along Kachina Trail

The trail joins Freidlein Prairie Road, now nothing more than a trail, about 0.3 miles short of Weatherford Trail. The sign (right) shown here is directly across the old road where Kachina joins it and the turn is obvious. We saw some faint signs that something might have been dragged along the old roadway sometime in the recent past. Otherwise, there were no signs of anything but foot traffic, so I suppose it must be closed to vehicle traffic further down the slope.

Just a few minutes later, we came to our goal, the end of Kachina Trail at Weatherford Trail, about 1.7 miles from Schultz Tank. It was just after noon and a good time to stop for lunch. I ate rapidly and then settled in for my noon nap, while the others rested and admired the scenery.

Ellis and the noon nap – photograph by George

George awakened me after 30 minutes as we had arranged and we packed up and headed back. I soon became aware that we were short a hiker and was told that Kwi had headed back to join the group that had turned back earlier. We try to discourage people from hiking alone; however, it didn’t seem to be a problem in this case as the trail was clearly defined and it would seem impossible to get lost. But, when we got back to where Kachina Trail turned off from Freidlien Prairie Road, two of our party marched blithely past the turnoff and we began to worry that Kwi might have done the same. We later found another spot where the trail turned to climb up a rocky ridge that one could easily have gone astray. We used cell phones to contact the rest of the party and found that she had not yet joined them. Fortunately, by questioning hikers we met traveling in the other direction we soon learned that Kwi was still on the trail ahead of us, and she did join that group about the time they reached the trailhead.

This was an 11.4-mile round-trip hike. The highest elevation was 9341 feet and the total ascent was 2256 feet.

Our GPS track is shown on the included map (below).