Lower Mescal 547 and Upper Mescal 550

Six Skyliners hiked the Lower Mescal and Upper Mescal Trails on Mingus on 17 August 2013. Leaving Cottonwood shortly after 0700, we drove through Jerome on Hwy 89A and continued up the mountain to park at Mescal Gulch, mile marker 339.6. The parking area is marked by a Prescott National Forest sign.

Forest Road 338 begins at the end of the guard rail, directly across Hwy 89A from the parking area. From our vehicles, we walked across the highway and took the forest road down a short steep hill to the Lower Mescal 547 Trailhead. The distance from the parking area is about 160 yards. The trail leads southwest up the mountain, at first parallel and close to the state highway. But it was still early on a Saturday morning and traffic on the highway was light, so we heard nothing after we had hiked up the trail for a few hundred yards.

We stopped along the way for a group photograph.

Left to right; Ellis Price, Donna Goodman, Kwi Johnson, Miriam Sterling and 

Daisy Williams – photograph by Name Withheld

Our trail led us along the bottom of a heavily wooded wash. On our left, the hills sloped up to Mingus Mountain, on our right was Woodchute. Although the beginning of our trail was definitely in Mescal Gulch, I think the wash we were now following was not a continuation of Mescal but rather a side wash. Mescal Gulch itself appears to continue northwest to a point of origin above Woodchute Tank on the south slope of Woodchute Mountain.

As we made out way up the trail, at first along an old road and, when that ended a well-defined footpath, no hint of a breeze reached us, deep in the wash as we were. However, the shade provided by the trees all around us moderated the temperature somewhat and we were only mildly uncomfortable; it was not bad for an August day in Arizona.

There were no viewpoints to distract us with far away views, so we contented ourselves with what we found close up. The path we were following (ight) was itself worth noting, winding pleasantly through the trees as it did.

Other close in sites to be viewed included a medium-sized tree seemingly intent on swallowing a large rock (below left). It brought to mind a python ingesting something larger than itself

About 1.4 miles from the parking lot, Trail 547 (Lower Mescal) ended at Trail 548 (Bug Hollow). We turned left (east) on Trail 548 and traveled only about 30 yards before we came to the lower Upper Mescal (Trail 550) Trailhead.

Having both an Upper and a Lower Mescal Trail with different trail numbers seems to me to be unduly confusing. Why not just a single Mescal Trail. But, in any case, we had now hiked 1.4 miles and climbed about 300 feet. We still had another mile to go and about 600 feet to climb before we reached the upper trailhead for Trail 550, located at Hwy 89A just below the summit. Needless to say, Upper Mescal Trail, rises more sharply (600 feet in one mile) than does Lower Mescal Trail (300 feet in 1.4 miles).

About two-thirds of the way up this trail we came out on an old, long-unused road. We followed that road for the rest of the hike and the climb leveled off a little, with even a short downhill section or two.

We left the forest about a quarter mile short of the trailhead. We were at the edge of a large open meadow which has been closed to motorized vehicles for a few years now and is well on its way to recovery as a grazing area for wild game. At least the elk appear to agree with this assessment, as we came upon elk droppings just a few yards from the tree line.

Open meadow at top of Trail 550

The trailhead is actually downhill a bit from the edge of the forest, so the rest of the way was easy. On reaching the trailhead, we turned and looked back at the trailhead sign and the meadow we had just crossed.

Upper Mescal Trailhead at Hwy 89A

We then headed back the way we had come. One alternative would have been to follow Hwy 89A back down the mountain to where we were parked at Mescal Gulch, but no one wanted to brave the traffic on that road and it would anyway have been further than the way we came. A second alternative would have been to bushwhack a short distance down the mountain to the Trail 548 Trailhead, take that trail back to the junction with Trail 547 and then continue on 547. But that too would have been further than the way we had come and we really didn't want to bushwhack. All in all, retracing the path we had taken up the mountain seemed the best way to return.

We saw a few interesting sights along the way back down the trail. The first was a tiny horned toad (right) that we saw just before reentering the forest. Note how well it blends in with the color of the rocks. Except for the distinctive shape, the toad could be just another part of the rock it is perched on.

Farther down the trail, actually along Lower Mescal, we looked toward the wash and saw steps leading up an ancient, gnarled old tree. Upon investigating, we discovered a long-unused hunter's blind (left) located just above eye level in the tree.

Some of our hikers had other commitments later in the day, so we left the hunter's blind behind and moved on down the trail, making good time now that we were going downhill. Unfortunately, we were not quite fast enough and the rain caught us about 0.2 miles from our vehicles. We were just too close to stop and don ponchos, so we all got wet.

Our GPS track is shown in red on the following map (below). Bug Hollow Trail (548) is shown in light green and Powerline Trail (549) shows as dark green.

According to my recorded GPS track, this hike was 4.8 miles round trip, the maximum elevation was 6930 feet and the total ascent was 1061 feet