April 12 – Greenhouse Trail Hike

Photos from our hike up Greenhouse Trail.

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Group that started out the hike together.  This is the hike report written by Jonathan, the hike leader:  After driving as far as we could get up the Greenhouse Road, a large group of 17 hikers and four dogs set out up the rest of the road and then the Greenhouse Trail. With high winds forecast, there was a haze in the air but we were sheltered from the wind for much of the hike. As we made our way up the trail, we encountered a group of turkeys, and later some cows higher in the switchbacks.
The last Greenhouse Creek crossing was flowing nicely, with big pools of water, and after regrouping there, we started climbing more steeply towards the Winn Falls Viewpoint. The tread in here has gotten quite narrow and degraded in places, between the lack of canopy in this area and more recent use by cattle. Eventually, we found ourselves at the Viewpoint, where everyone stopped, enjoyed the view, and then we split into two groups, with about half heading back down and the other half continuing further up the trail.
Continuing our ascent through the switchbacks, the tread gets worse intermittently but remains intact overall. After crossing the divide into the Cima Creek drainage, there are again sections of very faint or slipped tread, and a good amount of overgrowth but this improves again as the trail enters more consistent tree cover, and ultimately drops to right along Cima Creek, a narrow and always beautiful section of this trail which we followed for half a mile before climbing back out of it and walking the remaining distance through massive Doug fir trees among a mix conifer forest to Cima Cabin.
We ate lunch at the cabin, enjoyed the sun and scenery, and some climbed up to the Crest to see what view there was through the dust and experience the full force of the wind—which was so strong it was difficult to stand upright and nearly impossible to hear each other talking without yelling! From there, we turned back and headed down the trail, ending the hike after about 9 miles and around 3:30 PM.

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Trail sign near where we parked to stark hiking.  We must have parked on Basin Trail.  Photo was taken at the end of the hike as I didn’t think to take one as we passed it starting the hike.  I’m sure the sign was nicely vertical but I wasn’t by that time.
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Picture of the woods I think we went through before acsending out of the shade of the woods and onto the sunny mountain side that had been significantly cleared of trees and brush by a wildfire a few years back.
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Picture from Winn Fall viewpoint of the valley from which we started the hike
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Winn Fall view point we we stopped to regroup before about half of the hikers returned back down the mountain, the other half hiked onto Cima cabin, and I stayed to rest my legs and wait for the hiking group that went on to Cima cabin to return.
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Photo with Artem before he hiked onto Cima cabin with the other hikers headed there.
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Selfie before shutting my eyes to try to get some rest while waiting for the other hikers to return.  I was drifting in and out a bit when I realized I was sweating a bit and was in the full sun.  My limited amount of water I was carrying and risk of dehydration came to mind.  So I got up and moved to a shadier location.  Naturally, doing so got my blood flowing and mind working.  So much for a nap.  Sooo… I spent about 45 minutes responding to emails that had downloaded on my phone before I lost signal that morning.  After about 45 minutes, my shady spot was in sun and the previous sunny spot was in shade.  I got up and walked around  the area a bit, ate one of two sandwiches I brought.
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Winn Fall
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Zoomed in picture of Winn Fall from a slight different vantage point.
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From Winn Fall Viewpoint looking back over the valley that we came from.
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A look down the valley at some of the fire damaged trees that have not fallen over yet.
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One of two lizards I watched while relaxing at Winn Fall.
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Lizard #2 that I watched for a bit.  Knowing that many animals in the desert are venomous and/or pokey, and not knowing anything about lizards, I opted to watch with my eyes and not my hands.
After resting, doing email, eating, and spending time with my lizard friends, I was bored and still had about 90 minutes left until the hiking group was due to return.  So I decided to proceed up the mountain trail I saw them hiking up.

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A picture from the top of the mountain ridge back toward Winn Fall.
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Another photo from atop the ridge before I headed on down the trail toward the rest of the hiking group.  In truth, at the top of the ridge there were foot prints and what appears to be multiple trails going in different directions and none of them marked.  I took my best guess which one they went down based on what looked like fresh footprints in the dirt.  I guessed correctly.
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My attempt to photograph how narrow the walking path was and the drop off on the left.  The photo was not taken at an angle that shows the angle of the slope down on the left of the walking path or the slope up the mountain side on right side.  But you do get an idea of the width of the path.  I was so glad I had my walking stick to help me keep my balance throughout the hike.
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And finally, a photo of the truck door with the newly added “Arizona pin striping”.  The passenger side has pretty much a matching set of pin striping and it pretty much runs the length of the trunk on both sides if I recall correctly.

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