Location : North Rim / Kaibab Plateau – Forest Road 610 (NOBO Mile Marker 735.5 )
Date: 7-11-2019
Weather: Light to moderate clouds, starting temperature 68 degrees and the turn about 79 degrees.
Total Mileage Completed : 16 on AZT
Hike Description: This hike was a little 16 mile (1422 feet elevation gain loss) flip flop between two of our AZT “Out and Back” day hiking sections; hike #74 in the north and hike #72 to the south. Forest road 610 is a nice little dirt road turn off to the left and another left off highway 67 right before you reach the North Rim park entrance. There is another road, forest road 611 that you can use on this hike if you’re inclined. Just note, the official Forest Road 610 trailhead, to the south, is not a good started for this hike as we already passed that point on hike #72. In my opinion, all the forest roads around the North Rim are pretty tame and there are lots of options to make your own custom trail sections. My goal in creating our North Rim hikes was to limited each of them to no more than 16 miles in order to account for the long drive from Phoenix.
So…. on to the hike. I would have to say, I really enjoyed this easy little 16 miler. Some forest, some prairies, grand canyon rim views and even a couple sections of Aspen trees and ferns. If anyone just wants to hike a little in the North Rim area, this section is tops on my recommendation list. A must do. I was very much surprised to run into an area called the “East Rim”. At mile 2.5, the AZT grabs a section of the East Rim trail very close to the intersection of Forest Road 611 and hikes you right along very nice overlooking views of the Eastern Grand Canyon pointing towards the Navajo Nation and Utah. Very scenic
In general, this hike was an amazingly enjoyable hike with little or no painful elevation uphills other than a small 317 foot drop down and up at mile 10.8. The weather was even great and to help shade us from the sun we had a couple small dark grey monsoon clouds roll in. One more section down.
Enjoy the photos.
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