Picketpost Mountain Summit Hike

We first viewed Picketpost Mountain from the Arizona Trail.  It stood out all by itself on this open and barren land. Later, we passed a sign that said Summit Trail and decided we would climb it.  We couldn’t see how the trail would go to the top.   We didn’t do any online research, as we didn’t have good cell service.  

Summit sign is about .5 south of the Picketpost trailhead on the Arizona Trail.   Leaving the trailhead you come to a y and you take the right trail (azt) until you come to the summit trail sign showed above.

The summit trail is very straightforward in the approach and you don’t have any scrambling for the first mile or so.   We had our hiking poles, as we didn’t know how difficult the trail was going to be.  We ditched the poles when we had to start using hands and feet. 

Route finding was difficult at times, as there were social trails everywhere.  We found that following, as best you could, the red arrows led to the safest path up. 

There are white arrows too and sometimes the red and white are together, like in this photo.   Sometimes, they are not together, and that’s when we searched for the red ones over the white.  

I, a little semi old granny, was sketched out a bit, but loved the focus of mind it took for me to climb.   I also loved the rush I got when looking down.

My hubby followed me and he was a wee bit worried I would have a hard time down climbing, so he often asked me to climb back down something I had just climbed up.   I must have passed muster as we kept ascending.  

We ran into a young man coming down who told us we were close to the top and that it was easier route finding on the way down.  That helped a lot and we continued onwards and upwards. 

 The trail breaks over onto the top plateau after you leave the gully and it’s an easy walk to the summit register.  

We enjoyed reading what folks wrote. 

Yes!

We had three more hikers join us and then we headed down the mountain.  We followed the red arrows back down, as we needed to retrieve our hiking poles, but everyone took different  paths and they all seemed to work, so maybe it wasn’t as important to be on the red arrow path after all.  Lol! 

Picketpost in the sunset glow from our camper window.  It’s all Forest service land around here which means free dispersed camping!  

From Wikipedia:

The mountain's unusual name stems from an early military camp established at the base of the mountain by General George Stoneman in 1870. The soldiers nicknamed the mountain “Picket Post” due to its usage as a sentinel point to guard their camp from attacks. This military camp eventually grew into the present day town of Superior.