04-28-13

Yesterday we took a ride through the Hualapai Mountains. The trail started about 12 miles south of Kingman. From Kingman the paved road climbs into the mountains

to a summit at the Hualapai Mountain recreation area. Just past the recreation area you come to Flag Mine Road where you turn right. The road becomes dirt just after leaving the highway and continues to climb  rapidly through a neighborhood of what appear to be summer homes. 
Eventually you climb past the houses and whined through the trees along a ridge. The trail then drops into a high valley.
The area is reminiscent of the country around Clear Lake or the Mendocino National Forest in California with lots Ponderosa Pines

 

interspersed among  brushy hills.

 
I was surprised to see Manzanita and White Thorn as along with Prickly Pear cactus.

The narrow trail then climbs out of the valley and continues along the edge of the mountains for a while before it drops again.
Here is where we encountered our first rough spot.

The trail continues in this manner for most of the trip up the northeast side of the mountains, climbing out of a low spot and following the edge of the mountains and for a while then dropping again.

There are many nice views from the trail.

We stopped for lunch in a grove of pines. It was nice and shady and smelled of pine.

It must be a bedding area for cattle as unfortunately there were a lot of flies so we didn’t linger long after lunch.
Back on the trail we started down the southwest side of the mountains.

At one spot I noticed this cactus growing out of a rock cliff.

 

Patti got a picture of semi Wildlife. I think that is where the flies at our lunch spot came from.

The picture below is a bit fuzzy but it shows part of the trail down the southwest side.

The trail became much worse on this side. It wasn’t real difficult but it was quite rough with lots of switchbacks with steps and rock gardens to negotiate on the turns.

We passed the Boriana Mine. This was the largest tungsten mine in Arizona. It closed in 1957 due to a large fire.

Past the mine the road continued to be rough

One thing that I found interesting was that we started in the Mojave desert around Kingman and ended up in the Sonora desert with Saguaros,

 

Brittle bush and Teddy bear Chollas

Eventually we got to the valley where the road became flat and wide.

The trail ends at Alamo Road.

If you were to turn left here you would end up at the north side of Alamo Lake. We turned right and got on
I-40 and headed north to Kingman 30 miles away.

The trip was interesting but very long and tiring. The trail itself was 35 miles plus about 25 miles getting to the trailhead from our park and the 35 miles getting back home from Alamo Rd. 
We were pretty beat by the time we got home. We are taking today off. Tomorrow we are going to try the Secret Pass trail.