Date: February 23, 2021 • Elevation: 6,107 feet • Prominence: 387 feet • Distance: 2 miles • Time: 1 hour • Gain: 307 feet • Conditions: Sunny and pleasant

Arizona • Main • PB • LoJ

This hill lies south of the town of Pine in the Mogollon Rim Country and southeast of Strawberry Mountain which is the main geographical feature here. The hill has no name so it goes by its elevation, Peak 6107. It does not attract attention to itself, being one hill among many, covered in forest and scrub. I was aware of it as a ranked peak in the area. I needed to be out of the house for a couple hours, which is the main reason I came here to hike it.

It's a fast drive from Payson to Pine, just 15 miles and usually 20 minutes because there's always someone going slow. Today, they were cleaning the sides of the highway so they were shutting down traffic to just one way at a time following a pilot car. This meant about an extra 10 minutes of waiting. In Pine, I turned left onto Hardscrabble Road through the little residential cottages, then up the unpaved portion of road (Tonto FR-428) a couple miles, parking in a tiny pullout near the Walnut Springs Trail, elevation 5,800 feet.

The satellite images of the peak show a trail or possibly an old ATV track (because it looks too straight) going to the top, but it does not show where it connects to the lower road or trail. I'd figure it out once there. I was dressed and ready in moments, and started walking downhill on the Walnut Spring Trail. I dropped about 50 feet, then it levelled and came to a cleared area with two downed tree logs lining the trail. It looked like an old vehicle track here, so I figured this may be a good place to leave the trail and start up the hillsides.

I went left and sure enough, found myself on a very rough track that still seems to see an ATV now and then. The track met the base of the hill, then angled left and steeply uphill, putting me on a flattish bench of scrub and scattered trees. This road seemed to cut over and down off this bench, so I started looking for anything that seemed to go uphill to the top. I found lots of things ... and nothing. Everything I followed petered out in the brush after a few dozen feet. I found myself going in loops and going back to the road to re-orient myself.

I gave up trying to find a trail and started crashing through the brush. I'd follow a lane then hit some tangly woody scrub, bust through that to another few feet of open lanes, and repeat. Up here, there were still snow patches on the ground, interspersed with thick wet mud in the spots between the snow. None of this was difficult, but I was moving slower than I would prefer. Finally, about halfway up, I stumbled onto a lane that kept going and going. This must be that trail I saw on the satellite image. It weaved through the brush and trees all the way to the top. I was at the top of this hill about 40 minutes after starting, the last half going quickly once I found the trail.

The actual highest point seems to be covered over in thick brush, so I set my foot down on the area and called it good. There is an open "ring" around the top-most brush, including a simple bench made of small wood blocks and one long plank. I sat for a few minutes on the bench. The best views were north at the town of Pine plus the Mogollon Rim behind it, and of the cliffs of Strawberry Mountain. The day had warmed nicely, into the low 60s.

I walked down the path, this time intending to follow it as far as it would go and see where it would let out. It angled more north and seemed to descend somewhere toward the houses in Pine. There were some cairns and ribbons tied to tree branches. But it became indistinct, so I left it, went through the brush and down a drainage, putting me back on that old ATV road mentioned earlier. I was back to my car quickly, the whole round trip taking about an hour. I changed back at the car as another one pulled up, its occupants being two women and their small dog, who barked at me. I was home about a half hour later.

This peak did as intended: got me out of the house for a couple hours, and a little bit of exercise. The peak itself is nothing special and I would not recommend to come all this way to hike it. It appears that locals hike it, as there were bootprints in the path that looked recent. I don't know where it starts. It would be hard to describe what I did, other than go up and up until you see the path. Getting lost here would take some effort.