Grandview BM ^3x P1K RS
Red Butte P900 RS
Red Mountain P1K
Slate Mountain P750 RS

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It had been too warm in Sedona a week earlier, leading us to visit the Grand Canyon's South Rim to find cooler temperatures. Now that the weather was turning colder with a chance of rain, we decided to head back to Sedona. We visited a few summits between the two areas today as we made our way south.

Grandview BM

I'd already been to this P1K twice in the last week. It was near where we camped for the night, so I paid it a pre-dawn visit for gratuitous stat-padding before we headed out of the park.

Red Butte

This is a standalone summit, the only one within a six mile radius, and has nearly 1,000ft of prominence. It lies on the east side of SR64, about halfway between Tusayan and Grand Canyon Junction, in the Kaibab National Forest. There is a TH on the southwest side of the summit with a good trail going all the way to the top in about a mile and a half. There is a squat lookout tower atop the summit. We spent about 40min to reach the top with overcast, drizzly conditions, views limited by the shifting clouds around us. We walked around the metal decking on the second floor for the weak views, and found a benchmark underneath.

Red Mountain

An hour's drive got us to the TH on the NE side of Red Mountain, a P1K located on the southeast side of US180, between Grand Canyon Junction and Flagstaff. This one has a trail as well, but it does not got to the summit. It goes to the base of the NE Face which has been badly eroded to create a geologic curiosity. We followed the trail for only a short distance before striking off cross-country to the southwest. We aimed for the left side, following a ridge to the south of all the erosion, the same route used by all the previous GPX tracks we found on PB. This worked well, albeit a little brushy near the summit, to get us to the top in about an hour. No rain, but continued overcast and haze muted views. Gerry and Jennifer Roach had left a register here in 2018 with about half a dozen entries on two pages. I talked Eric into making a loop of it which turned out nicely. We first headed north and NW along the summit ridge, then down the northern edge of the erosion zone which gave us a much better view of the geology there. We even got a bit of class 3 scrambling in before dropping down to the bottom of the bowl where we picked up the trail that we could follow all the way back to the TH.

Slate Mountain

This summit is located a few miles southeast of Red Mountain. It has a trail going to the summit with a National Forest TH much like the prevous two. The trail is really an old road no longer open to traffic that zigzags up the SE side of the mountain before making a wide detour to the north and circling back to the top, all in about 2.4mi. The weather held out until we got to the top in about 50min when the drizzle started up again. I suggested that a direct route off the summit would be much faster, and that the cross-country didn't look too bad. It was mostly grass and forested slopes, though steep. Eric wasn't buying it. Maybe earlier in the day when his legs were fresh, but now he just wanted to take the easy way back, especially since he was much better prepared for the rain than I. So we parted ways as I headed directly down the SE side of the mountain at a good clip, getting back in less than 20min. Eric would be another 30min, by which time I had already showered and gotten some fresh clothes. We would head to Flagstaff for dinner that we had both been looking forward to all afternoon...

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