Flagstaff Loop North

Skirt the base of Mount Elden on the northern section of the Flagstaff Loop Trail.

Trail description

Note: The 44-mile Flagstaff Loop Trail encircles town and links many established trails. This section of the Loop Trail begins with the Rocky Ridge Trail that starts at the Schultz Creek Trailhead. The Loop Trail and the Arizona Trail share portions of this section, but they occasionally diverge and rejoin each other.

Immediately after leaving the trailhead, you cross Schultz Creek (usually dry) and climb up a steady grade. At 0.25 mile, the trail bears right and flattens out as it begins to work its way around the base of the Dry Lake Hills to your left. After gaining 150 feet of elevation, the trail crosses a steep drainage and turns right. After climbing a few rock ledges, you reach the trail’s highest point, which is 1.25 miles from the trailhead. From here, the trail continues across a south-facing hillside. The vegetation changes, with junipers, yuccas, and cactus becoming more abundant.

In a little less than two miles, you reach the Elden Lookout Road; look across the road and uphill a bit for a brown sign marking the trail’s continuation. The original Elden lookout was a one-room cabin built in 1914. It was replaced with a fire lookout tower in 1951. Unfortunately the 4,600-acre Radio Fire in 1977 destroyed the tower, but it was soon replaced by the current one.

After crossing the road, the trail makes a couple of large S-curves and goes south through a pleasant forest of ponderosas. Continue past the social trail that comes in from the left about a quarter mile past the road. At 0.3 mile from the road, you reach a trail junction with a brown Forest Service post; the Loop Trail goes right, while the Arizona Trail goes straight. At 2.6 miles, the trail skirts a subdivision, and you arrive at a broad swath of cleared land that is a pipeline right-of-way, which the trail follows for the next 1.2 miles. The trail returns to the trees and wanders along the base of Mount Elden, named after John Elden, one of the original settlers in the Flagstaff area.

History note: who was Elden?

At 5.1 miles, the trail reaches the Elden home site, where John and Susan Elden lived between 1877 and 1887. Most of their six children were born here, including John Elden Jr., who was born in 1881. Sadly, John Jr. was killed when Susan Elden told a mule herder named Bob Roberts he couldn’t water his mules at Elden Spring. He fired a random shot towards the homestead as he left, and the bullet killed John Jr. His  marked grave is near the home site. John Elden and two neighbors tracked Roberts to eastern Arizona and shot him. The Elden family left Flagstaff soon after the tragedy.

Elden Lookout Trail Junction

The trail continues along the base of Mount Elden, which is a lava dome that formed 500,000 years ago. The weathered, humped rocks forming the cliffs that the trail follows are made up of dacite, a particularly viscous form of lava that created the large lobes on the south side of the mountain. At 6.1 miles, the trail skirts another subdivision, climbs through a jumble of boulders and rock ledges, arriving at the junction with the Elden Lookout Trail at 6.5 miles. Turn right at this junction, and go a few hundred feet, where an unmarked trail near an old fence comes in from the left. This is a shortcut that joins the Fatman’s Loop Trail in a few hundred yards. Immediately after rejoining Fatman’s Loop, you’ll see a signed trail from the KOA campground coming in from the right. In another few hundred feet, there is another junction where you go right on the Christmas Tree Trail.

At 8.3 miles, you reach the junction with the Sandy Seep Trail in a small valley at the base of one of the Robinson Hills. Turn right to continue on the Loop Trail; going straight will take you to the Heart and Little Elden trails.

The trail reaches a final junction at 9.6 miles, where you go left for 100 yards to the Sandy Seep Trailhead, or go right to continue on the next section of the Loop Trail.

Directions

Schultz Creek Trailhead: Drive north on US Highway 180 for 3 miles to the intersection with the Schultz Pass Road; turn right, and go 0.3 mile to a junction with the Elden Lookout Road. Go left, and continue for a few hundred yards to a gate and the end of the pavement. Turn right on a dirt road that goes down a hill to the parking lot for the Schultz Creek and Rocky Ridge trailheads. Take the Rocky Ridge Trail.

Sandy Seep Trailhead: From downtown Flagstaff, drive east 6.8 miles on East Route 66 (US Highway 89) past the Flagstaff Mall and 0.5 mile past the Townsend-Winona intersection to a dirt road (Forest Road 9139) that comes in from the left.  There is a brown Forest Service trailhead sign on the right side of the highway just before you reach the left turn that you take onto the road to the trailhead.