Saturday, October 19, 2024
Well, this extended weekend trip that I planned for Diane and myself certainly did not start off on the right foot! The initial plans for this three-day weekend started to come together back in early September when I was finally able to sign us up for a Ranger-Led hike to the Crack-In-Rock Pueblo at Wupatki National Monument. I’ve been trying to get on one of these hikes for many years without any luck, so I was very excited to finally get on the list this year. Unfortunately, the first winter storm of the season would have other plans for us as it impacted the Colorado Plateau just before our scheduled hike. Although I had been watching the weather closely the day before our hike and it appeared that the storm mostly missed the Wupatki area, when we were near Cameron on Saturday morning and just less than an hour away from Wupatki we both received the following message from the Ranger in charge of the hike:
While I surely understand the reasoning behind the cancellation of the hike, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t immensely disappointed and heartbroken after all these years of trying and really looking forward to it, not to mention also feeling a bit frustrated after the seven hour drive we had just made to get here. Since we were near Cameron when we received the cancellation message I needed to figure out some alternate plans and thought it might be a good idea to head west into Grand Canyon National Park for the day instead. Thankfully I checked their website before heading that direction since Desert View Drive was currently closed because of snow overnight.
With no other options nearby that I could think of, we decided to continue on to Wupatki National Monument and drive the loop road through the park to visit the ruins while there were hopefully some nice clouds in the sky this morning.
First we stopped at the Box Canyon Pueblo.
Box Canyon Ruins
Then we walked over to the Lomaki Pueblo.
Lomaki Doorway
It appears they are working on rerouting the trails in this area, but the old trails are still open so I wanted to get a photo of both.
Next we continued on to the Nalakihu and Citadel Pueblos.
Hiking below the Citadel Pueblo wall.
From the pueblo there was a good view over the nearby Citadel Sink.
Citadel Pueblo Ruins
We continued along the loop road to the Wukoki Pueblo, which is probably my favorite one in the park.
As we followed the loop road into Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, we stopped at the Cinder Hills Overlook for a snow-covered view of Sunset Crater.
The fresh snow on the black lava looked really cool. This photo does not do the scene any justice.
Here’s a morning view of San Francisco Mountain as we left the park and decided to continue on to Flagstaff for lunch while we figured out what to do for the rest of the day.
After eating lunch in Flagstaff we decided to return to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument for the rest of the afternoon so I could hike all of the trails in the park. I figured that I might as well do something productive while we were in the area…
We started out on the short A’a Trail which loops though jagged blocks of rough, basaltic a’a lava.
Then we hiked to the rim of the Lenox Crater.
Next, we hiked the nearby Lava Flow Trail which loops through part of the Bonito Lava Flow at the base of Sunset Crater Volcano.
The trail went right next to this little Spatter Cone, which was very interesting.
To finish our time at the park, I hiked the Lava’s Edge Trail back to the Visitor Center where Diane met me with our vehicle.
After leaving Sunset Crater we returned to Wupatki National Monument and I took this photo of the sign with the dark clouds approaching to remind me of this day and the hike that was cancelled.
We went on a short walk over to Wupatki Pueblo just as it started to rain.
