Navaho Pass — Saturday, Jun. 15, 2024

Despite the weather we had a great time on this one-nighter at Navaho Pass! We arrived at the trailhead around 11:30am Saturday. There was plenty of parking on the roadside and even a few cars from the early shift leaving the parking lot. The trail is FULL of wildflowers right now, and what you see changes as you go up in elevation - we had to stop often to ooh and aah over new blooms! At a leisurely pace, we got up to the meadow area and set up camp by 4pm. Wind was whipping up there and it was snowing on and off, so that may have kept some crowds away. There were probably 6-8 other groups camping but it didn’t feel crowded and we didn’t have an issue finding a spot to make camp. Glacier lilies are EVERYWHERE here. Cool temps and wind kept the bugs away too, but I imagine in the high summer this would be very buggy!

Weather kept us from the pass in the afternoon so we just hunkered down and waited until the next day. In the morning, we did a quick hike up to the pass (maybe 20 minutes?). The views of the Stuart range are really jaw-dropping - you can’t see it until you’re right at the top, when it just smacks you in the face all at once. Some of our group continued on up to Navaho Peak. With some hanging out at the top, it was probably 2.5 hours roundtrip from the meadow, though we took it slow and you could definitely shorten that. The trail from the pass to the peak is quite steep in places and not very switchbacked - it was slippery with some of the loose dust/gravel. I’d recommend poles, especially for the way down! There were a few small snowy areas that were not hard to cross, even with the snow from the day before (see photo).

After packing up, we got back to the trailhead from the meadow in about 3 hours, after getting caught in a hailstorm — Juneuary strikes again! The silver linings were the strong Ponderosa pine smell of the trees in precipitation, and the way the flowers stood out against the white of the snow/hail - just gorgeous.

Not about the trail, but a note that we camped at 29 Pines campground the night before this trip to get an extra day outside and not have to do the full drive in the morning. It’s free with a Discover Pass and only ~15 minutes from the trailhead! It has porta potties but no water taps, so you have to filter from the river (right next to campground). All in all a great weekend outside!