Dome Mountain

Dome Mountain, just north of Apache Junction, AZ, sits as the highest point of the Goldfield Mountains in the Tonto National Forest. Peakbagger.com also lists it as the South Phoenix Area Range5 high point (Peakbagger splits the world into ranges, Range1 being the continents, Range2 being fairly large portions of the continents, then progressively getting smaller down to Range5 which is usually about the size of a typical U.S. county). It sits at a reasonably low 3,375ft MSL, which means no sky island status for thee. The hike itself is not terribly difficult, with only a couple Class 2 moves toward the end and a well established trail/road the rest of the time. It does have a lot of sun exposure, so be sure to pack the sunscreen and plenty of water!

Getting There

The trailhead for Dome Mountain typically starts at the Wolverine Canyon OHV Staging Area which serves as the entrance to the Bulldog Canyon OHV Permit Zone. Beyond the gate there, you need a permit from the Forest Service, currently on Recreation.gov at a cost of $10 for three days. Any vehicle can make it to the staging area, and most high clearance can make it another 1.3 miles on FR10 and FR1356 to a large turnaround (shortening your time in the Phoenix Air Fryer by 2.6 miles!).

Route

Most of my posts here will not include a detailed Route section since other places like SummitPost do a much better job than I could do. What I will include are my elevation profiles and GPS track, as well as if there's some special routing I'd like to note. For example, Dome Mountain has white marks like the one seen below along the trail in place of cairns. If you want my raw GPX files, feel free to reach out! I'll be glad to share.

White trail marker

Elevation profile vs. distance traveled

Elevation profile vs. time passed

GPS track of the hike as recorded by OnX Backcountry and overlaid on CalTopo. Note the little accidental excursion down into the canyon.

The Trip

Now on to the less official play-by-play of all the cool and interesting things that happened (or not, depends on the hike).

Originally this day was planned to hike Camelback Mountain and knock that iconic peak off my list, but since my roommate (who had agreed to go with me) forgot his hiking shoes back in Flagstaff, I was on my own. In lieu of Camelback, I briefly looked around on Peakbagger and chose Dome since it has over 1k of prominence and is a Range5 high point (more lists than Camelback, and I'm a sucker for lists). No benchmark on top though, which was slightly disappointing. At any rate, I woke up at the ripe hour of 8am, took my time rolling out of bed, and got on my way by 9:30.

I pulled into the dirt lot at about 9:50 and parked across from a Jeep Gladiator who I (correctly) assumed was also hiking Dome. By this time, it was already 70 degrees and climbing, but I felt comfortable enough with my Nevada summer experience that I would be fine. I slammed down a tuna packet for breakfast, harnessed up the mutt, then started on the trail with 2.5L of water.

The trail starts off on a fairly well maintained dirt road, but then after 1.3 miles turns into a 4x4 only road, then after another 0.9 miles turns into a proper hiking trail. There are multiple intersections during the road portion, so I utilized one of the GPS tracks published by those who came before me on Peakbagger to make sure I stayed on track.

These first 2.2 miles of road hiking were fairly uneventful. I maintained a good 20-minute mile pace and enjoyed the cool-ish temp as I cruised through my first proper desert hike. Since living here, I've come to appreciate the desert for the wide open space it provides and the hardiness of its wildlife and flora. Since this was also Belle's first proper desert trip, I was a little concerned about cactus but I knew she had at least a basic understanding to stay away since we have encountered prickly pear before. Cholla though, she had not seen before and would need a (hopefully painless) education.

Along this first road section, I encountered the owner of the Gladiator trudging back shirtless. I asked if he went all the way to Dome and he confirmed, but seemed pretty tired so I let him be on his way without further interrogation.

Now, remember how I said there was a place where the road turns into trail? Well that's not where the road ends. If you continue on the road to the left, you descend 170 feet into the canyon and reach a dirt cul-de-sac. Right when I hit that, I pulled out my phone to check the aforementioned GPS reference and realized to my dismay I had overshot and needed to climb back out.

Luckily, there was a social trail with cairns that led back up to the trail so I didn't have to backtrack. But the dog being a dog did choose this time to discover what cholla can do.

For those who don't know, cholla is a family of cacti that has segments that fall off. These segments are covered in spines and if they get stuck in something/someone, the best way to remove them is to use a comb or fork and flick it off. The image below is a good example of the cactus plus it's gnarly little offspring on the ground around it.

Typical cholla

Belle not only got three good-sized chucks stuck in her hind legs, but then immediately, no hesitation, brought a leg up to her mouth and got a face full of spines. I rushed up to where she was and grabbed her face, making sure she didn't try and lick or swallow any spines (this can be very dangerous and cause internal bleeding). I was able to pull the face spines out, though her lip was pretty bloody after. As far as I could tell none had gotten into her mouth/down her throat. Cholla spines are harder to pull out than prickly pear spines I found; they take a lot more finesse to not just break off part of the spine and leave the rest in the victim.

Next were the cactus segments in her legs. I dug through my pack and found a camping fork I keep in there. I slid the fork tines between the spines in her leg and gently but swiftly flicked the segments off and away from her. There was still some minor cleanup of individual spines to do, and I took my time trying to get them all. Next time, I'll pack some tweezers as well to better grab these things as opposed to my fat fingers.

I should also say here that her only reaction to pain is flinching slightly when I pull the spines out or, in the case of her face, trying to pull away. No whimpering, no whining, and unless the spines are on the bottom of her feet, no limping either. Tough dog.

A taunting view of Dome Mountain after climbing out of the hole

After that slight interruption, we continued up the social trail. Along the way I saw a hummingbird feeding on some of the red tubular flowers, though I don't know enough and didn't see it long enough to know the species.

This short little climb up from navigational failure was enough to make me realize I am NOT as acclimated to the heat as I was in Nevada. It was hot, and only getting hotter.

It was pretty slow going up the the saddle before the final summit push and both Belle and I were getting pretty wiped. We rested for a good while in the shade of a bush to try and regain some energy, then continued up the steepest section of the trail. We were only about a half mile from the top, but also about 700 feet of elevation.

The view from the saddle looking up toward the peak

After more slow going and fairly frequent stops, we reached a section I referred to as "The Oasis". A large rock escarpment juts out of the ridge and is tall and steep enough to cause a permanent shade spot of decent size where lush green grass has taken to growing. Lots of good sitting (and lying) spots there. We stopped for about 20 minutes here just because it was so nice and cool before trekking the final few hundred yards to the peak.

The Oasis

The rocks on this last portion were pretty neat. There were lots of embedded crystals and crystals that looked like they oozed out of the rock. I don't know a ton about geology, but I do know a cool rock when I see one!

Cool crystals, wonder if they have special powers like the hippies say?

The peak itself was not too dramatic. The name "Dome" gives it away I suppose. Pretty flat and wide on top. There is a summit cairn with a notebook in a plastic bag serving as the summit log with multiple entries vying for oldest codger to make the top (oldest I recall is 75). I threw my young guy age in there in case anyone wanted to try for youngest as well. Nice views all around though from the Four Peaks to the north, the Superstitions to the east, and Mesa/Phoenix to the south and west. I looked briefly for Humphrey's, but it was too hazy and I couldn't see it.

The Superstition Mountains as viewed from Dome

The Four Peaks as viewed from Dome

The view to the southwest, featuring my Deuter Trail Pro 36 which has quickly become one of my favorite backpacks

I did my obligatory summit Instagram story (yeah, go on, call me a white girl), then after a couple more minutes of scanning with the binoculars to see what I could see we started the march back down to The Oasis where we spent another hour and I rested my eyes for a bit while the dog went exploring.

Belle doing some mountain goat moves

It was as we were getting ready to leave that I considered that we were down to a half liter of water. Hmm. No turning back now, we're already on the way back.

We got to right before the trail turns to road before Belle decided we needed another shade break. There was another, much, much smaller Oasis that we rested at for another 20 or so minutes before I figured we best get moving again.

Road and trail intersection

The above photo is a reference for any who wish not to descend into the canyon and would much rather take the trail. Hindsight is 20/20, of course this trail is obvious.

After hitting the road, it was just a long and tedious two miles left before sweet air conditioning. It was about 2pm at this time, and the hottest part of the day. Did I mention no shade?

At the end of the 4x4 section I was passed by two guys on ATVs that looked like they were looking for a place to party (one had a backpack cooler). Then one mile before the trailhead, the cleanest, blackest Jeep I've ever seen passed me on his way out. Crazy how clean things can stay on these dusty roads.

These last two miles were honestly brutal. We were down to our last milliliter of water and were just trying to push through. Belle, smart girl, would sprint ahead of me a ways, find a shady place to lie down, then wait for me to pass her a ways more before repeating the process. I felt bad it was so hot for her, but there was not much I could do until we got back to the car.

As soon as we (I mean just me, Belle had already arrived in the shade of the car long ago) stumbled into the parking lot, first thing I did was turn on the car and get the A/C going so the car would be cold when I got in. Belle got some extra water and a couple treats for bearing out such a brutal trip for her first real desert adventure and we loaded up and headed home. Besides the one other hiker from the morning, I was the only one on the trail on this fine Friday. Final end time was just before 4pm.

The moment we got back to the house in Mesa, Belle jumped right into the pool and stayed there. I went and took a cold shower and realized how burned I had been. Lesson learned, bring more water and start earlier!

As a parting gift, here's a very typical Grumpy Belle photo, taken as she was impatiently waiting for me to catch up to her on the final summit push:

Hurry up, Dad!