Brookbank Meadow

Agassiz and Fremont Peaks over Brookbank Meadow.

I'm surprised I haven't blogged about Brookbank Meadow before. It's one of my favorite places in Northern Arizona. The meadow is in a high, elongated bowl in the Dry Lake Hills, a subrange of the San Francisco Peak mountains range, the meadow being one of the dry lakes. The elevation is about 8300 feet (2530 meters) above sea level so a little bit of cardiovascular fitness is needed to get there.

I like to approach from the Sunset Trail parking lot on Schultz Pass Road. It's only 11.5 miles from my house but it's a slow drive. The first half is city, with a number of traffic signals, and the second half is a windy, gravel, mountain road. It takes about 30 minutes.

I'm used to hiking up the fire road but when I got to the meadow I realized that at some point a trail called Swell was built and it's possible to walk single track the entire way. This time I went up the road and down Swell.

I hiked slowly since I've been having issues with my right instep for a year or more now. It seems to be healing but doesn't withstand stress or running.

The hike goes up through pine forest and into a transition zone to fir, spruce, and aspen, with glimpses of the peaks. There's still a little snow on the high peaks.

Horned lizard on the Swell Trail.

Flagstaff in the distance. Foreground is the burn scar from the Museum Fire a few years ago. Mount Elden is on the left and Flagstaff peeps may recognize Buffalo Park just right of center.

It was a weekday and I saw nobody on the hike up to the overlook of Flagstaff and only ran into four mountain bikers on the way back. There were plenty of birds and a few lizards along the way. Brookbank Meadow is one of my favorite places in Arizona. Even though part of the forest burned around the circumference a few years ago, it's still a beautiful location.

I went back down Swell and it looks like the type of single track that I like to bicycle on so I may be back when I feel in shape enough, which will be soon.

A view coming down Swell. It's a little longer than the road because it winds over into some side drainages.