Monsoons are here (kinda), which means I no longer have to spend every single second of every single day glued to my work phone in case something catches fire and I have to unexpectedly head into work.
Which means I can now use my weekends as intended: Finding and exploring all the places in Arizona that don’t have cellphone service.
This past weekend, it was the Mormon Mountain area, including a dispersed campsite along a forest road and a day hike to the summit of the mountain overlooking Arizona’s largest natural lake — Mormon Lake.
I spent my Fourth of July weekend on a quick little camping trip about 30 minutes south of Flagstaff. My friend Lindsey and her husky, Logan, asked if I had any interest in joining her for a quick two-day, one-night trip, and my answer was an obvious “of course!”
After a bit of deliberation, we decided to head out to the Mormon Lake area, which is somewhere I drive by fairly often for work, but haven’t ever actually stopped to explore.
This camping trip almost didn’t happen because (quick rant) the seat latches on the Jeep Wrangler JL models absolutely suck.
I drive a two-door Jeep which means the driver and passenger seats slide and fold forward to allow passengers to crawl into the backseat. However, it’s a pretty well-known problem that the latches frequently break and lock the seats in a forward position (incapable of seating a human) without latching them into the base beneath them.
My passenger seat first broke about a year ago, I was quoted $2,000 to fix it (absolutely the fuck not) and then after some back-and-forth with the part ordering, Ryan finally fixed it with a $15 part about six months ago.
Yes, I spent six months with my passenger seat locked forward and roped to the roll bar with Paracord so it wouldn’t slam forward and backward while I drove.
It was just my luck that as soon as I got to Lindsey’s and got her stuff loaded up, the seat broke AGAIN.
Luckily Ryan’s out of town on a fire assignment, and his truck was parked at one of our forest offices in town so Lindsey and I were just able to rendezvous at his truck and load it up with all our stuff to head out.
It worked out well.
Plus, all our stuff (including the two dogs) fit way better in Ryan’s massive F-150 than in my tiny two-door Jeep Wrangler.
We drove off Mormon Lake Road and onto Forest Road (FR) 90H, which is where we found a nice clearing to park Ryan’s truck and set up our tents.
We’d driven the length of the road before picking our spot to make sure we weren’t too close to any other neighbors, and once we were sure we were mostly alone, we set up our tents, unfolded our chairs, and laid around relaxing and reading.
We made veggie dogs for dinner and roasted s’mores over our camp stove since we’re still in fire restrictions forest-wide.
Oddly enough, as soon as the sun set, Lindsey and I realized that our campsite was not as secluded as we’d thought it was. A row of lifted trucks and UTVs suddenly started flying by on FR90H, and then zipping past our campsite further into the forest off the motorized use corridors… where apparently a large group of people was excessively loud and rowdy. Which was exceptionally annoying.
I feel like every time I end up car camping, it serves as a reminder as to why I much prefer backpacking instead.
Regardless, I did eventually drift off to sleep, and short of being woken up at 1:30 a.m. by a UTV flying past our campsite (why???) I slept really well! Ochi and I were up at 5:30 as the sunlight started to stream into our tent and slowly roast the both of us alive.
Lindsey, bless her, had woken up a bit before me and had already made coffee. I got started on breakfast (hash browns, Field Roast breakfast sausages and eggs) and then the two of us packed up our campsite and made our way to the trailhead to get hiking.
We started our hike shortly after 9 a.m.
Mormon Mountain Trail is an easy 6-mile out-and-back trail with about 1,400 feet of elevation gain. The parking lot is pretty small, but we were the only vehicle there, and we only ran into one other person during the several hours we were on the trail.
You get sneak peaks of both the mountain top and Lake Mary during the first mile or so off the trailhead, and the majority of the trail is shaded by towering pine trees.
The bulk of the elevation gain happens during the first mile off the trailhead, where switchbacks zig-zag you up the side of the mountain, where you can catch glimpses of the summit to one side, and Mormon Lake to the other.
If you’re hoping for a payoff of a summit view, you won’t get one: The trail ends when you reach the communications towers up top — at which point it’s time to turn around and head back down the mountain.
But, the trail itself is beautiful and full of old growth pines that slowly make way for aspen groves once you get closer to the top of the mountain.
Given that monsoon season as arrived (I think?) Lindsey and I really lucked out with a sunny, rain-free day.
Wildflowers haven’t started popping up yet, but we were treated to a smattering of butterflies that floated in and out of the pines.
It was a much, much, needed weekend camping trip. I hope we get some more rain in the forecast because now that my weekends belong to me again, I definitely want to start heading out on some more camping trips.
