Kendrick Peak & Newman Hill

Kendrick Peak is the 12th tallest peak in Arizona, and the tallest in the Flagstaff area outside of the San Francisco Peaks themselves (or Kachina Peaks, same thing as the "McKinley" vs "Denali" debate). With a Forest Service lookout at the peak, it tends to be one of the more popular hikes outside Flagstaff. The historic cabin for the lookout sits slightly below the peak, locked and mostly unused. Both elk and deer abound in Bull Basin, just to the northwest of the summit and in case you bring your hang glider, there's a handy windsock in one of the meadows!

Getting There

My favorite peaks are the ones that offer route and trailhead choices. Kendrick is no exception, with three "common" trailheads and an interlocking trail system all around. Bull Basin TH and Pumpkin TH compliment the aptly-named Kendrick Mountain TH to round out the group. To get to Pumpkin TH, take Hwy 180 north out of Flagstaff, then turn left onto FR 193. Run this until you junction with FR 171, then hang a right. Continue to a three-way junction, of which the right fork would take you to Kendrick Mountain TH (as you may guess, Kendrick Mountain TH is the most popular TH). Keep on 171, passing a grouping of trailer homes and then turning right at the sign to Pumpkin TH. Any vehicle could make it.

Route

Having taken Pumpkin TH, our route was a little different than the standard you'll see from other sources.

The Route - note we performed one variation on a loop! I think the CalTopo arrows look better this time.

On the way up, we followed the established Pumpkin Trail all the way to the summit. On the way down, we ventured on the Bull Basin Trail, then free-balled it across the basin to rejoin the Pumpkin Trail toward the end.

Elevation vs. Distance

Elevation vs. Time

I love it when the time and distance graphs almost look the same. Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside!

The Trip

Saturday Evening

Having finally been able to coordinate with one of the elusive Hoerl brothers, we set off in separate vehicles to first summit Newman Hill and then proceed on to Bull Basin TH.

We took that right fork at the three-way and headed up past the Kendrick Mountain TH, destined for the highest point on the saddle between Newman and Kendrick (to minimize uphill hiking, of course!). The road was pretty rough, but nothing a stock Forester and Tacoma can't handle! The saddle provided a nice wide camping area, but no view. Didn't matter to us though, our fate was to march straight up the vertical slope to the rim that comprises Newman Hill.

Part way up, as I was catching as much breath as I could, Ian spied a herd of mule deer running on a nearby ridge. Belle got excited, but I was able to persuade her (via e-collar) to not bust butt after the ungulates.

A zoomed in view of the Kendrick Lookout from Newman Hill. So close, yet so far!

The banner image of this post is the view from the top of Newman. It was certainly a beautiful evening to be up there! Ian wanted to walk to the other side of the rim just to see if he could find the deer again, but no such luck. It was getting late, and we still had quite a bit of road to go, so we hot-footed back down to the cars.

The map had shown me that this side road continued on and met FR 171, and not being one to shy away from a non-standard connector road I took the lead on down. It was certainly not a road for the faint of heart; multiple times I smacked the rear bumper on the protruding rock behind me, and Ian even hit his frame a couple times in the Subaru.

After longer than expected, we hit FR 171 and continued on cruising. We passed the turn off for Pumpkin TH, and turned right onto FR 101. This dirt track quickly turned into a rockery. It was decided that reaching Bull Basin TH from this side was a no-go, and we stopped at the top of a bump with an ok sunset view of Kendrick. The original plan of hiking the Bull Basin Trail was reformed into the Pumpkin Trail, after which we hit the hay.

Sunset at the end of our road journey. The tall one is Kendrick, and a little sliver of the moon center stage!

Sunday Morning

Having a little bit of a rough drive back down to Pumpkin TH, we arose and got going around 6:30AM. The drive was thankfully uneventful, and we made it onto the trail by 7:30AM.

The trail starts up a gully, then turns to sidehill/climb a ridgeline. On this portion, we saw our first group of elk and deer (combo!) skylined against the top of the ridge. Ian noted he hasn't really ever seen elk and deer hang around together, so fairly unique!

Two of the multitude of elk, conveniently skylined on the ridge!

Once we crested the saddle, a large basin opened up in front of us. Technically, according to the map, this isn't Bull Basin (that is one more ridge bump to the northeast), so I took the liberty of christening it "Pumpkin Basin". Across Pumpkin Basin, we saw another large group of elk amassed in a meadow, just munching away.

Can you spot the elk?

The Boundary Fire from 2017 left quite the scar on this landscape. Not a lot of trees remain standing in this basin as we skirted around the edge and climbed up the south ridgeline. Before popping up to the top of the ridge, we came across the intersection with the Bull Basin Trail, though this segment of it is not one that we would have taken had we stuck to the original plan.

Pumpkin trail sign, if you're coming off the Bull Basin Trail.

The Bull Basin trail sign, if you're coming off the Pumpkin Trail.

The upside of being out of shape is that your catch-a-breath pauses allow you to turn around and take in the view!

Taking a look back, Sitgreaves Mountain sits on the left.

This ridge we tracked on top of happens to also be the summit ridge. For now, the trail is not too steep, but whenever you look ahead you are constantly reminded that the summit block is twice as steep.

Just a tease! The lookout makes sure you know it's just 'right there'!

Now at the base of the summit block, why's it gotta be so steep?

This last little portion of trail was pretty slow going. There was a number of dead and down logs on the trail hindering already slowed progress. Belle had no problem as always, and even had enough energy to go sprint after another small herd of mule deer! She probably added over a 1/4 mile just chasing those guys, but had the time of her life doing so.

The last few hundred feet of trail curves around the south side of the peak, giving tantalizing views of the lookout only 50 yards up the hill. You wouldn't want to beeline it there though, very dense brush lies in the way and why would you carve your own path through the Arizona jungle if you had a perfectly maintained trail to finish out on? The trail also provides a beautiful view of the San Frans that you'd miss out on by skipping it!

Quite the overlook! Always nice to see where I've been before (I've done Humphrey's twice).

Upon reaching the lookout, you'll find there is really not much space up on top. The only clear-of-brush places are the lookout itself and the associated helipad. The lookout remains locked up during the off season, so you can't get onto the catwalk unless you clamber up the girders (I did not). I figured the view from six feet lower than the lookout's porch would be the same.

If I need rescue, I know where I'm asking the helicopter to land!

The lookout cab, elevated just enough to clear the brush and have a walk-in 'basement'.

Of course I had to bag the benchmark as well, no peak is truly complete until I've found the BM and RMs or determined that one/neither of those still exist.

Kendrick only had a BM - RMs have since been long destroyed sadly. Also no unique markings like 'KENDRICK' or something cool :(.

Ian and I spent some time grabbing lunch up here, talking about the usual young guy topics like women and what our future grand plans are. The plan was formulated to descend via the Bull Basin Trail to make a loop rather than do the boring out-and-back.

After about an hour, we packed up and moved on. The Kendrick Mountain Trail fork was our first waypoint, coming up quick at a short 50 yards from the summit. Having ascended the west side, this fork took us down the east side to a large flat saddle (or just a finger ridge?) just below the top. Here there were clearly plenty of camping sites, as well as an old cabin that used to serve as the lookout's home before they put the live-in cab up there. The cabin was all locked up, but still had a visitor log ammo box in it. Maybe they rent it out? Maybe a ski cabin? I couldn't find any information on it online other than just being the "old lookout cabin" so who knows.

Belle posing for a Wes Anderson-esque photo of the cabin.

An older couple joined us at the cabin, having come up from Kendrick Mountain TH. They were pausing here to have lunch before heading the final distance to the peak, so we left them to their peace and moved on.

The cabin served as our next waypoint where the Bull Basin Trail forks off the Kendrick Mountain Trail (directly behind the cabin so it happens). Almost immediately, we were encountering fairly continuous snowfields. The first half mile or so was alright; the snow wasn't too deep, there were plenty of cairns poking through, and the slope was pretty gentle.

Looking back at Kendrick on the BBT (Bull Basin Trail).

Of course this gentle grade didn't last. The trail dives off the side of the summit ridge, and when there's no snow on this northernly aspect I'm sure the trail is easy going. Not on this day though! Every step plunged up to at the very least just above my knee. The snow was just soft enough that you could hesitate on top with your next step, but as soon as you put your full weight down you sank. The most unfortunate part was it was mostly sidehilling, so we couldn't even glissade down! Not to mention that we were now fully in the burned area and there were many downed logs under the snow just begging for one of us to twist our ankle on them.

Part of the Post-Hole Bonanza with Ian taking a pause in a small tree well.

Belle of course had no issue, being a petite girl at 35 pounds with a waist that a model would die for. She frolicked along without a care in the world, occasionally coming back to check on the slowpokes. We were just thankful we hadn't followed through and had to hike the ascent through these conditions.

The trail here sidehills down and across the north side of the ridge until it meets another high saddle, at which point it dives down again into the basin below. The saddle and top half of the basin are absolutely covered with aspens. Both of us agreed it would be very pretty in the fall when the colors change, and would be fairly devoid of people (since all the white people would much rather drive up to the aspens at Snowbowl than hike in to these).

Imagine these trees covered in red and orange leaves (or even just green), and it's almost something out of Bridge to Terabithia.

Upon reaching the bottom of the basin, we turned around and spied a very large bird of prey circling where we once stood. Zooming in to the max my phone could do, we determined that it was likely a golden eagle, a bird that I personally did not know existed in AZ. Often, juvenile bald eagles are mistaken for golden eagles. The main difference is that young bald eagles often are mottled white and brown with no distinct spots, while golden eagles have two very distinct white patches underneath their wings. These are clearly visible in the image below, ruling out the bald eagle brethren and confirming the species.

At 32x digital zoom, this is likely the lowest-quality photo I will ever post. But clear enough to see those white patches!

Walking through Bull Basin was fairly pleasant. The trail got hard to follow at one point, but we were just shooting for a clearly visible saddle to dump over into Pumpkin Basin anyway. We did pick up the trail again after encountering the most massive cairns I've ever seen. Each one was almost four feet tall and was more of a pile of boulders than a stack of rocks. The gumption of a determined individual to find, move, and pile them likely cannot be matched.

The view back from whence we came up Bull Basin.

Most of the way across the flat basin bottom, an orange dot caught my eye farther out to the north. Further inspection by Ian with binoculars confirmed the suspicions of the orange dot being a wind sock, but didn't explain why. I felt like the area would be a pretty bad one to paraglide/hang glide in, but maybe somebody does it? Maybe there was a helibase there for the old fire and they forgot to take down the windsock when they left? Who knows. Someone else will have to hike the extra mile to go visit it and see if there's any other clues.

The mysterious wind sock - who put you here? Why? When? So many questions, so little answers.

Cresting the saddle between Bull and Pumpkin Basins we had two choices to reach our next saddle goal (and rejoin the Pumpkin Trail). We could either cut straight across and risk unseen and abrupt elevation changes or we could continue on the BBT to the junction with Pumpkin Trail (photo from before). Ian dropped down the bowl and got a head start while I ripped off a pee and took a moment to realize we were right on the Kendrick Mountain Wilderness border.

I guess the employee that mounted this sign didn't have the tools to mount it the right way! Kendrick dominating in the back.

The path ahead, down into Pumpkin Basin. We were shooting for the low point where the tree line meets the ridge.

I followed the trail for a while as it sidehilled around the basin, but eventually got fed up with how long it would be compared to just meadow walking across so I dropped down to join Ian. An old fire road crossed our paths, having clearly been used fairly recently with fresh tire tracks in the dust. I couldn't help but wonder how hard the drive was to get to that point; it would've knocked off at least two miles of hiking and would have been a great sunset spot.

Joining the Pumpkin Trail really was the end of the story, nothing exciting happened within the last mile to the cars. The only other people we witnessed on our trek was that old couple near the top. I'd call that a success! I'm sure if we had taken the standard trail, we would have seen a number more. I for one always prefer to find these alternate routes (if they're not extremely different mileage/vert-wise!). They give you a chance to see the road less traveled and maybe allow for some of your own route-finding rather than blindly following a trail. Not enough people trust themselves off-trail or know how to navigate with a map in my opinion; if they did, I'm sure there would be a lot less SAR calls!

After heading back into town, we stopped at Lumberyard Brewing and enjoyed a late lunch and some good beer before parting ways to start our respective work/school weeks. This peak also signaled the end of my spring break 2026. One to remember for sure, but don't worry, I'm not done yet! Get ready for Part 2: Someone Else's Spring Break!

I didn't really get a good portrait of Belle on this trip, but I must keep with tradition. Here instead is a Belle photo from earlier in the year on top of Old Caves Crater on the opposite side of Flagstaff. Such a pretty puppy, I can't resist posting her whenever I get the chance!

The pretty lady herself, decked out in an insulated vest for the cold weather.