The Mogollon Rim The Mogollon rim stretches about 200 miles from near Flagstaff to the White Mountains in eastern Arizona. The trails described herein cover about 50 miles of the rim located north and east of Payson to the intersection of Rim Road and route 260 at the eastern end. In the GPS files attached to this file there are 37 separate tracks covering more than 140 miles. The Highline trail is the longest at more than 50 miles between the Pine and 260 trailheads. It runs between 1,000 and 1,500 feet below the rim. There are tracks for 12 trails that connect the Highline to the rim and 2 more that reach the Highline from below and 3 intermediate trails that go to a rim connector trail. Also 7 GPS tracks connect trailheads on top of the rim to make possible the 6 loop hikes described in this guide below. These top connector tracks are a combination of Rim road, other dirt roads, the General Crook trail, Rim Vista trail and/or some easy off trail parts. The Highline itself has been split into 7 logical tracks to keep good resolution on each segment with 500 or fewer track points to allow them to be transferred to modern Garmin mapping GPS units. Also the 7 tracks in the Cabin Loop described in the other file on this website are included so one file would contain all tracks. There are a few minor trails that are not included but may be added in a future version. Who’s in charge? That is a good question for this part of the Mogollon rim. Three national forests share management of this territory. Everything below the rim is managed by the Tonto National Forest (NF). This includes all of the Highline trail and most of the distance in each of the trails that go up to the rim. After reaching this well defined rim management changes. Everything west of Knoll Lake and on top is managed by the Coconino NF including the entire cabin loop. East of Knoll Lake and also on top of the rim belongs to the Sitgreaves NF including the entire Promontory Butte. Campsites There are a large number of Forest Service campgrounds in the area. See Tonto, Sitgreaves and Coconino websites for a listing of these. Also open camping is permitted throughout and you can backpack just about anywhere or find car camping spots near the trailheads or at numerous spots off the sizeable network of dirt roads on top of the rim. If winter weather brings enough snow, the dirt roads on top of the rim are not cleared and the Coconino NF will close them until the snow melts and the roads dry out which is usually in late April. The Coconino NF office is very good about posting road closures and openings on a timely basis on their website. The Trails and GPS tracks Cabin Loop (yellow) – Described in the other guide on this website has 7 GPS tracks Highline Trail (black) – Is 50 miles long and has 7 GPS tracks designated HL1 through HL7 in the attached GPS files. Trails Connecting to the Highline Trail (red) – Fourteen trails that connect to the Highline. Twelve go from the Highline to the Rim and 2 come from below the Highline to connect to it. An additional 2 tracks (West Milk Ranch and Geronimo) go from the Highline to one of the trails that continue to the top of the rim. Top Connector Tracks (blue) – Prefixed with an “X” there are 7 tracks that connect to trailheads on top of the rim. These are a mixture of the General Crook or Rim Vista trails, Rim road and/or other dirt roads and/or some easy off trail segments. These tracks allow for day hiking loops that include the Highline trail, a trail going to the top of the rim and then across it to a trail going down to the Highline to complete a loop. There must be a thousand ways to hike these trails. Many hikers have done a multi‐day backpack of the complete Highline trail and that is great. I have not backpacked the Highline but I have done many day hikes on the rim and my favorites are the loop hikes. These loops are filled with constantly changing scenery including very pleasant hiking in dense forest, great panoramic views from the rim itself, nice water at springs, rivers, creeks and intermittent streams. Hiked at the right time and place and you might also enjoy spectacular fall color and deer or elk sightings. Not the entire Highline trail is that nice though. Forest fires have taken their toll over the years. The largest one was the Dude fire in June, 1990 that affected much of the area between the Washington Park and Hatchery trailheads. It is almost 19 years later and there has been significant re‐growth. But sections along the way can be an obstacle course as you must hike around deadfall. Also the low growth includes tall grasses that obscure the trail at times. In these sections there are trail markers that help including the silver diamonds nailed to trees, yellow or orange plastic ribbons, cairns, and forest service trail signs with trail number 31 and/or Highline trail. All of these markers are reliable. There are blue plastic ribbons in a few spots that I found confusing so I would ignore those. There is supposed to be a trail sign at all trail intersections but some of those have disappeared in the last two years and I don’t know why. The GPS tracks included here were recorded by me with care including re‐hiking a couple of trails I found confusing. To the best of my knowledge, they are accurate. A good way to use them is to transfer the ones you will hike on a given day to a mapping GPS and assign them a color that shows up well on your screen. While using your GPS to follow a track, stay zoomed in at 80 or 120 feet or 50 feet if satellite reception is excellent (meaning GPS error is 10 to 20 feet). Zooming in too close will make you think you are off trail when what you are seeing is normal GPS error. Zooming out too far and you will have to drift far off the trail before you realize that you are off trail. At 80 or 120 feet you will know you are off the mark fairly quickly. Moderate Day Hikes Sinkhole‐Drew Canyon Loop: The hike starts at the 260 trailhead and goes up about a thousand feet to rim. From there we hike along the Rim Vista trail, a paved walkway with beautiful views from the rim. This trail ends after a while and the path to the upper Drew Canyon trailhead becomes an easy off trail adventure. Two tracks are provided from hikes done in 2005 and 2008. Either of these or anything in between these will get you to Forest Road 9350, a well traveled dirt road leading to the rim, numbered campsites on the rim in the Sitgreaves NF and the Drew trailhead indicated by a large sign on the right (north) side of that road. Hike down the Drew trail to the intersection with the Highline trail and turn left (east) on the Highline trail for the return trip to the trailhead. The Drew/Highline intersection has no sign at the present time and can easily be missed. The tracks for these trails will tell you exactly where that intersection is and you must turn east to return to the trailhead. If you see a silver diamond marker (indicating the Highline trail) nailed to a tree before making a left turn you have passed that intersection and are heading west so turn back and go east on the Highline. At just under 13 miles this is a moderate hike. See Canyon‐Drew Canyon Loop: After starting at the See Canyon trailhead the trail crosses Christopher creek and goes northwest up See Canyon gaining about 1,700 feet to reach the rim at 7,900 feet elevation. Just before reaching Rim road we turn right heading east on the General Crook trail marked by Chevron markers nailed to the trees. At a pointed indicated in the track we hike down a dirt road currently closed toward the rim. Reaching the rim we hike more than a mile on the dirt road along the rim (FR9350) to the sign on the left (north) side of the road indicating the Drew Canyon trail. Hike down the Drew to the Highline (unsigned and hard to see intersection). Continuing straight here has you heading west on the Highline going back to the See Canyon trailhead. This is a moderate 11 mile hike. You can do a side trip to See Spring at the beginning of the hike at the signed intersection. This adds a mile to the trip or ½ mile out and back. Horton Creek‐Derrick Loop: The Horton Creek trail goes from the Horton Creek trailhead to the Highline trail and only a few hundred feet past that is Horton Spring, a beautiful site with water gushing out of the hillside year round. This is the most popular trail and destination in rim country. There are many camping sites along the creek and near the spring to enjoy. After a visit to the spring you hike east on the Highline trail to its intersection with the Derrick trail. Trail signs once there have disappeared but the tracks will identify it exactly.