Zoom

27.5 miles of hiking • 3750' elevation gain • 2 nights

Did 3 day 2-night loop in Mill Creek Wilderness. The trail has been repaired in its entirety last year, and even though there's some new blowdown from this winter, it's much easier to follow now. Unlike my 2011 trip there, got lost zero times! This time got there before the best of the flowers, but beat mosquitoes in parts of the hike. Met Water (Matt) at the end of first day past Twin Pillars - he was doing the loop with his wife. I didn't catch up with them on the second day since I didn't break camp until 10:30 am - went past the ridge section and camped about a mile before Belknap junction, found a pond and a beautiful ponderosa grove just east of the trail. On day 3 I stashed a pack at Belknap jct, went to White Rock campground to the end of the trail, back to Belknap and took it down to S Twin Pillars TH where I began. It's great conditioning hike with a lot of camping opportunities. It was hot down the canyon today!

Comments

Chris, Shane, Nat Turner, and Kyle Meyer heart this trip.

Water (Matt)
May 15, 2012

nice to meet you Roman--and pepper! I didn't see it before but I think the trail crew did an absolutely phenomenal job. The groves just north of the Belknap junction with Wildcat were incredible--I would go back to camp there sometime.

Sorry my wife didn't come over to say hello, she was getting the fire ready. Next time!

Roman
May 15, 2012

It was nice to meet you Matt! I'm glad you liked the area (or at least a part of it?), those trails are definitely harder than average and so much of the wilderness got burned... i'm cautious to recommend it and even decided against taking my family on the whole loop. But I myself come there 3rd year in a row (bailed out in 2010), I like that hike. Was it your picture on the trail just before N Twin Pillars TH?

Roman
May 15, 2012

BTW with the trails repaired I think of doing a family hike next year... Everybody liked the pictures :)

Kyle Meyer
May 16, 2012

This is bar far the best photo documentation of the area I've seen. That looks incredibly beautiful! For some reason, I had it in my mind that this was mostly a desert hike, not a sparsely forested meadow walk with ponds and rushing cool creeks.

Thanks for taking the time to upload all of these photos—I'm working on multifile uploading as we speak and will have it up in a week.

Water (Matt)
May 16, 2012

kyle: YAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY to multi-file. Last time I tried to upload pics I got some errors outright and nothing went up, so I stopped, but I'll backfill if you get that working :)

Roman: Was it a bunch of lines drawn in the trail? My wife...waiting from me while I took pictures. I will try to process mine tonight. I liked all of it, but especially wildcat trail side..that was just awesome over there. The NW corner didnt have much Ponderosas and I just love those trees. The camping area over at whistler rock seemed very nice too.

Water (Matt)
May 16, 2012

Now I looked at the pictures (have some similar ones, such as of the deer bones). Anyways yes Kara/Bucket drew that picture! :)

Nat Turner
May 16, 2012

This Place Looks Amazing. Great TR Def gonna check this one out soon, before it gets too hot hot hot out there. Looks like your dogstar had a great time, any rattley snakes? For some reason they make me nervous regarding the hounds.

Roman
May 16, 2012

Nat - good question on rattlesnakes. In my 3 spring hikes (2 were during very warm weather) I saw no snakes at all, but when I did a short hike last October - just about 3 miles in - saw a rattlesnake and 2-3 rubber boas. I don't know if snakes get out later in a season (the nights still kind of cool) or it was a mere chance... I'd say though there's almost no ticks, saw only one in spite of taking many rest breaks and a couple of naps on the grass. Yes Pepper had a great time, now she don't agree to let me go to work ;)

Shane
May 20, 2012

Thanks for sharing! I'm definitely going to have to get down there soon.