Thinking about doing a run this weekend, Saturday, including one more trail also, but dont know how Reno Pass is....Any hints....other than dont go alone!

It says Difficult in AZ Backroads...but we dont know how there ratings are

I was also thinking about doing Reno Pass this weekend. I called the Mesa Ranger station and found out that it was closed with no proposed open date. It is still in pretty bad shape after the fire they had in the area. Sorry to bring the bad news...

Wellllll POOP! Thank you for the notice!!! Hmmm ok back to the book!!

Did you go on the Edwards Park run a while back? If not that is a nice trail. If you want to run something a little more technical I posted about running Upper Woodpecker Mine.

Woodpecker is to crazy for us, especially if we have Dans mom, thinking moderate, and scenic, cant throw her around to much in the back of the truck! Edwards Park....Im going to go look that up!

FJ4JESSA wrote:

Woodpecker is to crazy for us, especially if we have Dans mom, thinking moderate, and scenic, cant throw her around to much in the back of the truck! Edwards Park....Im going to go look that up!

Yea I know what you mean... I wouldn't think about taking my Mom on Woodpecker.

Edwards Park is very scenic and pretty easy going as long as you do not take the Joline Mine detour. The detour gets a little rough (somewhat like Sunflower Mine). Montana Mountain is another that is very scenic and doesn't toss you around too bad.

Yeah the only problem is we want to get to cooler weather in the long run, so we were thinking of doing bulldog, still considering it, and then do reno pass and shoot up to Payson...

Edwards park doesnt connect, and we have to go to the dreaded four peaks, cant stand driving around with ATVs....so dangerous....still looking....uggg there is one trail in Payson, but we dont remember how to get there, Pyatt.....UGGG! I want cooler weather and Payson Pie!

Edwards Park is pretty much fire roads with the exception of the detour, which is not very heavily traveled and lots of fun. Its a pretty short part of the trip, but some fun spots and a cool mine to walk around in.

Yea I understand your concerns with 4 Peaks. I can not count how many near collisions I have had with ATVs or Dirt Bikes, in all cases they were going way to fast around turns.

You guys should just skip everything down here and just run straight up to Payson. I don't have my book with me here at work but there are a good number of nice trails up there. Temps here all weekend are going to be 100+ so Payson is going to be nice...

Yeah thats the biggest reason we want to go up to payson, just get a tease of how nice the weather is going to be soon....hoefully!! Ok posting up a trail run for this weekend, your welcome to join us Cypher!

FJ4JESSA wrote:

Yeah thats the biggest reason we want to go up to payson, just get a tease of how nice the weather is going to be soon....hoefully!! Ok posting up a trail run for this weekend, your welcome to join us Cypher!

Thanks I just saw your other post. Unfortunately I am super busy on Saturday and then running Woodpecker on Sunday. Do us all a favor and bring back with you some of that nice weather. It is officially fall, right? hehe Gotta love AZ...

Ohhh Ill drag it back if I can!! We need it to cool off for the Oktoberfest Party!!

FJ4JESSA wrote:

Ohhh Ill drag it back if I can!! We need it to cool off for the Oktoberfest Party!!

Now you're talking!

I remember reading an interesting story about Reno pass and someone's attempt at making an alibi for a premeditated murder by running it on a horse... being into and out of Phoenix in a day... and so I ran it. I've actually done it a couple of times.

I don't give it particularly high marks.

The run up on the west slope is a generic degenerated mine road. It's not particularly challenging or scenic, but it's not horrible.

Over the pass on the east side downslope, the crux obstacle is a section of shelf road that's melting away with an angled water channel across it. It's a narrow trail and one wheel dips pretty low toward the shelf side to get through. For IFS rigs, this induces a substantial body lean and is capable of flying a rear wheel on the uphill side. It's moderate in difficulty, but it's pretty scary and it's a genuine source of some danger. Total disaster with a rollover into the canyon bottom far below could be arranged if one screwed up badly enough.

There are many places with very close dense brush. It's unavoidable and unappealing. I don't mind taking close brush scrapes when I'm otherwise traversing a great trail, but here it just seems a bit much. It's there, and it's that ingrown because the trail isn't very popular. After exiting the canyon, the trail meanders through cow land and low dense trees which force a serpentine path and many many scrapes against large broken branches. It's some of the most annoying brush on the trail.

If you have the goal of ticking off all the more difficult trails in the SUV guidebooks, then you're pretty much obligated to do this one at least once, but that's the best reason to do it... to tick it off and say that you did. I wouldn't put it on a par with a lot of other trails that have equally interesting "hardest" sections, much more interesting other sections and much better scenery. It doesn't hold a candle to Charleau gap, for instance, which is comparable to the tough move on Reno pass, but has a lot more going for it.

Hmmmmm VERY Interesting and informative post BellyDoc!!! Thank you!!