Saturday May 25, 18.4mi/29.6km

Elk Tank (397.2/7860ft) to Hannagan Meadow Lodge (415.6/9110ft) (Arizona)

I didn’t hear any elk last night, but I did wake up to a squirrel dropping pine cones on my tent. Good morning? I started the day with a nice walk down another old abandoned road.

Then I connected to a trail which leads down into Bear Wallow Creek. The trail was in terrible shape, and had large trees fallen all over it and it was very difficult to follow.

As I descended further the trail was easier to follow with fewer trees blocking it.

I soon came to Bear Wallow Creek, which was a beautiful serene setting and a very lush environment.

There were no fallen trees here, but the trail was extremely faint and I had to pay close attention to stay on it. I also had to stay focused on what vegetation I was walking through, as several of these itchy plants were lurking on the trailside.

I crossed and re-crossed the creek several times, but it was always an easy rock hop across and I never needed to get my feet wet.

Cool flower.

Sometimes the trail would climb a little above the creek and traverse on a sidehill…

… Before dropping back down creekside.

There was a massive wildfire here like 15 years ago, and some of the areas were extremely burned.

Since I was hiking upstream all morning, I was slowly gaining elevation and the lush environment started to transition to a pine forest.

I stopped at a trail junction for lunch, and noticed that the trail condition immediately improved.

The side trail must lead to an easy access point for trail maintenance crews to get here. After a couple more miles I finally climbed out of Bear Wallow Creek Canyon, and up higher the entire forest had been burned by that wildfire.

Just before I reached the trailhead, I passed by the backside of this sign, which meant I had been in a wilderness this entire time. Sweet.

Since Bear Wallow Creek was such slow hiking, I had only made it 13 miles by 3pm. But I was only 6 miles from my destination, so I pressed on down the next valley.

I passed by a very strange orange object. Even after exploring it I’m still not sure what it was.

I hiked down Double Cienega Creek, and it was much easier hiking.

After a few miles I turned off the creek, and hiked up a side creek and then some old roads which landed me at Hannagan Meadow.

Yep it sure looked like another alpine meadow.

I walked up to Hannigan Meadow Lodge expecting to get a shower and maybe a cold drink.

After I went inside the staff was very welcoming and even showed me around some of the rooms.

Since they had some cancellations they offered me a room and dinner for a reduced price, an offer which was difficult to decline. It had been such an energy intensive day, the high calorie meal was very welcomed and also tasted delicious.

Dinner was served at 7:00 and I must have eaten pretty quickly because I was done at 7:30 and went over to the sitting room to check out the maps. My favorite was this 3D map, which I spent a long time looking over to see where I had been, and where I was going to be hiking.

I went up to my room and got showered and sorted through my gear, and then went to bed.