Hike Hualapai Mountains Loop Hualapai Mountain Park, AZ

Sep 24, 2022 — Hualapai Mountain Park hosts several excellent trails, though a few of the trails are actually just old dirt roads. As much as I love my local Spring Mountains, I needed a change in scenery until the weather cools off in Vegas and somehow I forgot the Hualapai Mountains are actually not that far of a drive from home. Despite hiking Hualapai Peak (the high point of the range) a few years ago, it was nice to return and get an updated perspective of this area, plus add on a couple of peaks I neglected earlier. The park requires paying an entrance fee, but I suppose that also means I'd get to enjoy well-marked trails and an official trailhead.

I started along what seems to generally be an unnamed trail, but on maps is labeled "Aspen Peak Trails". This trail wanders through burned trees, affected by the 2021 Flag fire and since restored. I reached the Potato Patch Loop after a few switchbacks and kept to the right, taking the loop portion counter-clockwise. This trail wraps around Aspen Peak and forms a nice loop, but most people don't seem to go much farther than this, I noted as the Saturday crowd diminished significantly. Along the way I could see glimpses toward Dean Peak and into the valley below, the overlooks often framed by pretty granite clusters. I got a nice view out toward Hayden Peak to the south before a short descent where I reached the junction with the Aspen Peak Trail. I took this narrower spur trail, which ascended the southern slope of Aspen Peak and led to a great overlook with a bench, the end of the official trail. Reaching Aspen Peak itself meant continuing past the overlook and ascending on an unofficial trail through some thicker vegetation, though it was by no means a bushwhack. Just below the summit, a small green road sign has been affixed to a tree reads "Peak Way", cute. Some easy route-finding led up a short Class 2 section and then the summit block had a quick Class 3 move over a crack.

I backtracked to the Potato Patch Loop Trail and headed toward Hayden Peak. The signage is a bit confusing here since no trail officially leads to the summit. Most seem to hike along Hayden Peak Drive, a steep dirt road. However, there is a pink-blazed trail labeled "Dinosaur Rock Spur", which leads through the woods and up to a shelter and a well-marked cutoff trail you can use to reach Hayden Peak Drive higher up, avoiding most of the road walk. I definitely recommend doing this instead of just using the road, but I marked both options on my attached map. Hayden Peak includes two summit blocks of similar height, each with a grouping of radio towers. The northern summit is reached via a bunch of metal stairs/ramps and then a Class 2 scramble, while the southern one has a series of human-assembled stone steps and a small tunnel formed by a large boulder, followed by some navigating around wires and structures.

Hualapai Peak was just to the south, so I took a minute to look at how the traverse from Hayden Peak to Hualapai Peak might turn out, but the route appeared particularly cliffy and brushy, particularly below Hualapai, so I didn't attempt it. Instead, I made my way back to the Potato Patch Loop and headed southeast. This section of the trail is just an old dirt road. At some point I noted the junction with the Potato Patch Loop, which leads north. I still had more peaks to get before completing the loop though, so I kept to the dirt road, now labeled the Hualapai Peak Trail. It loses some elevation before ascending to a saddle separating Hualapai Peak from Peak 7720, an unnamed bump that sees little attention. This minor peak was wrecked by the Flag fire, but no tedious thorny undergrowth had sprouted up yet, so I started up the steep slope (Class 2). There are many granitic boulders along the last few hundred feet to the summit, but they seem to just linger around the high point and can mostly be avoided by keeping to the right and side-hilling around them, though the scrambling is pretty fun if you choose to stick to the crest of the hump. The summit block itself requires a Class 3+ move on a particularly large, slabby boulder.

Back along the Hualapai Peak Trail, I made my way up about 800 vertical to the base of Hualapai Peak. At the final switchback before the road/trail ends is a slope that leads to the summit. Going too far along the road would mean instead being beneath the peak's steep cliffs. I headed up the slope on a social trail that seems to have certainly become more well-traveled since the last time I was here, picking its way through brush and with the occasional Class 2 move. The summit block requires a tougher pull move (Class 3+).

I backtracked and continued along the Potato Patch Loop, a bit more scenic than the first half of the loop. I got a view back toward Hayden and Hualapai, as well as toward the hills to the east. There was also an interesting portion of trail carved into base of the northern cliffs of Aspen Peak.