This weekend we decide to explore the White Mountains and look for mushrooms, a yearly tradition for us. This time supposedly the harvest is not so good so we decide to explore a different area near Vernon that we never stayed in before. But first on the way we buy takeout to eat at the AirBnB as there are no restaurants nearby.
The AirBnB is cozy and we enjoy our time in it even though it was a bit expensive versus what is offering. Still it has a nice living room and kitchen as well as two bedrooms.
And with the bedrooms we can choose where to stay for the night, we choose the main bedroom as it seems to be more quiet than the second bedroom.
In the morning we see our AirBnB for the first time in the daylight and explore the area around it while eating breakfast. And then it is time to explore the mountains we decide to start with a nearby cache on top of a mountain named, hopefully figuratively, Wolf Mountain.
It is a short drive of about fiveteen minutes to the mountain. But already on the way we see cows on pastures and chipmunks in the forests, cute.
There is no official parking spot or even a trail so we drive around the mountain looking for a good route and a place to park. We finally find a good parking spot so we park and on we go.
From the beginning this seems a great trail for birds with woodpeckers and chickadee all around us. We even have our hopes up that maybe we will see some special birds here during migration.
The route we choose is mostly flat at first but then we start climbing quite steeply. Luckily we choose ok and it is doable but with many breaks when we keep an eye out for any interesting birds.
However first we see flowers and butterflies, not something that we expected in large numbers in fall.
What we are a bit surprised to see are the many fallen trees, it looks like the war against the Ents happened here with the Ents losing badly.
And then we hear something unusual and after some checking we find a special bird, that we hoped to see but didn’t expect. It is a Cassin Vireo that gives us some great views, it is a lifer for us, something unusual now in Arizona. And as a bonus in five minutes we also reach the top, we are now on top of the world or at least Wolf Mountain. And we also find the cache easily, double bonus.
We eat some snacks on top and enjoy the views and then it is time to descend. We take it slow and steady and make it down without falling and then it is time to drive to the next trail just a mile further down the road.
