Humphreys Peak Summit – Arizona’s Highest Point (12,633′)

Summit Date: September 16, 2017 (Saturday)

Watch the corresponding YouTube video here

This hike was a part of the 10 day long trip in Arizona I had put together on behalf of my outdoor club MOB, and this was the first of the many activities we had planned for this trip. Last year when I did a trip out to Utah / Arizona, I spent most of my time in Utah, and only a few days in Arizona. But that trip helped me to plan out my future trip to the state knowing exactly what I needed to visit in this trip, and I invited my fellow MOBsters to join me as I was already somewhat familiar with AZ 🙂 .

Instead of going into the details of the trip, I am going to jump right into the hike. We spent the night before and night after at Woody Mountain Campground near Flagstaff, AZ, in case some readers are looking for a suitable place to camp near the area before and after the hike. Due to its altitude of 7,000’+, it gets pretty chilly at the camp at night.

Nine of us met at the trailhead (TH) at 8 AM. The altitude at the TH was ~9,003′ and the summit is 12,633′. So it is about 3,630′ gain and loss plus a few feet of elevation that you gain and loss by going over the three sub-peaks.

Group Shot at the Trailhead

We quickly reached to some rocky section after about an hour where we took our first real break with a view. The first few miles into the hike are all in the trees, nothing that one would expect of AZ being a state of desert. Our next real break was once we reached the saddle with open views, where I ate my sandwich and took a few pictures and videos. You would start to feel altitude at that point already as it was past 11,000′ by now.

View at the saddle

Starting from that point on, the entire hike is on rocky terrain with exposed views all around where you would just want to stop to soak in the views if this is your first time doing this hike. That’s exactly what I did 🙂 . I took my time to enjoy and cherish my surroundings. The peak that we saw in front of us was not the true summit. It was the first false summit. Once we reached to the first false summit, that’s when we could see the remaining two false summits as well as the true summit.

Rocky terrain leading to the summit

At that point the going became slow as we were gaining elevation and going up on the altitude where the air was getting thinner and thinner. Coming from sea-level in NYC, I can never get enough acclimatized when in high altitude. Anyway, summit was within our reach by that point. So, all we needed to do was to put one foot in front of the other, and before I knew it, I was on the summit! 🙂

Group shot on the summit

As usual, we took our solo shots as well as a few group shots on the summit before heading back down. I also took a few mins to rest my eyes prior to leaving the summit. Going down was pretty fast (to my surprise as I am always on the slower side when descending a mountain). Yet, the five miles down the mountain to get back to the parking lot seemed like a never-ending journey!

All together it took us 9 hours to complete the hike, including breaks. Our next adventure on this trip was Havasupai Falls – a blog posting on that will appear here soon 🙂 .