Casner Mountain Trail

We set out on 19 January 2013 to hike the Mountain. Having already hiked Mooney Trail to the top of Casner three times, I was anxious to try the Casner Mountain Trail. Ron Grafe who has not hiked with the Skyliners for awhile had already contacted me to say he would join us; then looking up after preparing the sign-in sheet, I saw a vehicle sporting the familiar Bice Electric sign (right) and knew that Gordon Bice, recently too busy to hike much, was also with us today.

The day was bright and sunny and we set out for the trailhead in good spirits. We drove north on Hwy 89A to the Sedona Waste Treatment Facility and turned left onto FR 525, turned left onto FR 525C (Sycamore Pass Road) about 2.8 miles from Hwy 89A, continued on past the well-traveled FR 761 (Bill Gray Road) turnoff and arrived at the trailhead just across Coffee Creek after traveling 7.2 miles on FR 525C. The Forest Roads, both 525 and 525C had recently been graded and were in very good condition.

The start of the trail is marked by one of those sturdy, almost indestructible old rusty trailhead signs (see left) that are seen on area trails of a certain vintage. Only a small parking area is provided, just large enough for a single vehicle, perhaps two with care. However, additional parking is available alongside the road.

The trail leads past the sign down to the bank of Coffee Creek (usually dry) and connects with a very faint old road that leads across a side wash and continues, at a rather steep incline at first, along the slope on the other side until it reaches the service road for the Sycamore Substation power line after about eight-tenths of a mile and an elevation gain of some 550 feet.

The Casner Mountain Trail was apparently built by the Casner family to drive cattle from the Verde Valley to the Mogollon rim for summer grazing. It was later used to build and maintain the power line. It is still used as a service road for the power line, but is normally closed to public travel by motorized vehicles. I think the section of trail we followed from Coffee Creek up to join the service road (about 300 yards beyond the gate barring motorized vehicles) must have been a part of the original cattle trail.

After joining the service road, the trail runs straight up the mountain for about eight-tenths of a mile, at first rising at a gentle slope, but becoming ever steeper, rising another 600 feet or more.

Looking up the trail to Casner Mountain ahead

The trail then starts a series of switchbacks, a total of nine by my count, to rise an additional 700 feet or more in the next nine-tenths of a mile.

At the beginning of the switchbacks we paused to take a group photograph (below) and to look down on the Robbers Roost formation.

Left to right: Becky Fowsky, David Beach, Ron Grafe, Gordon Bice, Kwi 

Johnson, Daisy Williams, George Everman, Jim Manning, Dolly Yapp, 

the author and Miriam Sterling – photograph by the twelfth hiker using 

the author's camera

The photograph here (see right) shows Robbers Roost. The much photographed Robbers Roost cave is located on the opposite side, just below the rim at the top of the formation.

After a short rest we gathered our packs and resumed our trek along the switchbacks toward the top of the mountain. The total elevation gain would be about 2200 feet and we had done a bit less than half of that.

As we climbed higher we could look back down the mountain and trace our path, following closely along the power line, up the lower slope to the start of the switchbacks. Lifting our gaze a bit we could see down Verde Valley to the mist-shrouded White Hills beyond Camp Verde. The bright morning sunlight filtering through the mist served to give the whole scene an almost surreal look.

Looking back the way we had come from the switchbacks on Casner 

Mountain Trail

At the sharp turn of the ninth switchback we came to what I thought was the best viewpoint of the entire hike. We could look out across Sycamore Pass and on across Black Mountain to the Black Hills.

Looking across Sycamore Gap to Black Mountain. On the horizon are 

Woodchute (center) and Mingus (left). To the right Granite Mountain is 

dimly visible in the distance above a slice of Sycamore Canyon 

(to the right of Black Mountain)

Shifting our focus a bit to the west we had a clear view down Sycamore Canyon as it would its way toward the Verde River Canyon.

Looking down into Sycamore Canyon from the Casner Mountain Trail

We still had almost another mile to go and something over 600 feet to climb to reach the top, so we didn't linger very long at this viewpoint.

We came out at the top of the mountain in a sort of saddle with a small, rocky rise to the left and another to the right. The trail ahead had a thin, patchy layer of fast-melting snow. I had started with the notion of hiking on along the top of the mountain to connect with the top of Mooney trail some 3 to 4 miles ahead; however, that now looked a muddy, miserable prospect, and we decided to climb to the summit for lunch and then turn back.

But which of the small uprisings was the actual summit. The one to the right appeared higher, so we went there for lunch. A later look with Google Earth indicated that we had chosen incorrectly, the other rise was shown as higher by about ten feet at 6810 feet. However, the one we settled on for lunch gave me a GPS reading of 6840 feet. Of course a reading on my instrument taken at the top of the other rise might also have also been higher than shown on Google Earth.

Right spot or not we had great views all around for lunch, we could see the snowy path ahead that we had chosen not to take, a view that only validated our decision to turn back here.

Trail running north with the power line across the top of Casner Mountain

Looking to the northeast from our perch, we also had a clear view of the San Francisco Peaks.

The San Francisco Peaks seen from Casner Mountain Summit

Ron Grafe told us of a ceramic figure he had seen, mounted on a rock outcropping overlooking Verde Valley, about a tenth of a mile above the switchbacks and 70 yards from the trail. He had checked on the way up and found that it had been destroyed, probably by high winds, possibly by vandals. The parts of the figure were still scattered about and, intrigued by his description, several of us stopped to reassemble it on the way back (left). Ron and George called it “Nightmare.”

The hike back down went fast and we were back at our cars about five and one-half hours after starting the hike.

The total hike distance shown on my GPS was 5.8 miles round trip, the maximum elevation was 6840 feet and the total ascent was 2583 feet. The GPS track is shown on the included map (below).