Amble in the Aspens
Looping Veit Springs Trail Yields a San Francisco Peaks Showcase

by Janet Webb Farnsworth

Autumn will soon engulf the San Francisco Peaks with jumbled gray basalt, purple Wheeler thistle and red-leafed creeping barberry spreading under golden aspens.

The Veit Springs Trail follows an old jeep road uphill into the Lamar Haines Memorial Wildlife Area, a small preserve covering 160 acres at 8,600 feet elevation. Elk and mule deer are plentiful in the early morning, and squirrels and birds can be found midday. The route also may be used for mountain bikes and cross-country skiing.

Veit Springs Trail, an easy 1.5-mile walk, makes a great hike for families and showcases the high country's most colorful season.

The road narrows to a well-marked path and heads downhill to a fork at .2 of a mile. The route makes a loop, and I follow the left trail. The mass of lava rock testifies to the San Francisco Peaks' volcanic origins.

Following the first frost, trailside ferns will weave a gaudy mat of variegated dark green and gold colors under the Douglas fir and ponderosa pine trees. The trail rambles gently in and out of small arroyos for three-quarters of a mile to where a small spur trail leads left about 100 feet to Ludwig Veit's cabin. The maroon-colored, rusted tin roof is splashed with aspen leaves. Veit homesteaded there in 1892, his one-room cabin surrounded on three sides by enormous lava boulders. For safety, the home has been cut down to 5 feet tall, but peering through the doorway, I see weathered floorboards.

Just beyond the house, an arrow carved into an aspen tree points to Veit's name carved into a large boulder. Two small rock buildings house the springs that once attracted Veit. In spite of all the moisture that falls on the peaks, there are surprisingly few springs. The porous ground allows moisture to sink into underground rivers.

Past the springs, the spur trail leads left along the basalt cliff, where a small seep trickles out of the ground and a cave cuts into the rock. To the left of the cave opening, look for three red handprints, pictographs from early Indians, and high on the rock face to the right, you'll see another pictograph of two human figures, one with horns. Between the figures is a long pole with three dangling zigzags. Archaeologists estimate the figures are more than 1,000 years old, so their meaning remains mysterious.

After backtracking to the main trail, it's a short walk to a plaque commemorating Lamar Haines. The wildlife area is named for Haines, a Flagstaff educator who helped establish an environmental education curriculum. Near the plaque, a clearing is all that remains of the cabin of Randolph and Julia Jenks, who owned the Deerwater Ranch. In 1948, they sold the land to the Arizona Game and Fish Department for just $1.

From this point, the route loops back to the trailhead. Eventually, snow will cover Veit's little cabin amid the boulders, and the enigmatic pictographs will witness the silence of another winter. But for now, I'm content to enjoy a high-country amble.

Directions to the trailhead: From Flagstaff, drive north to Snow Bowl Rd. on US Highway 180. Follow Snow Bowl Rd. 4.5 miles to the Lamar Haines Memorial Wildlife Area, on the right. Parking is available at the gate.