We drove to Flagstaff to see the fall leaves today. There were also two breweries/taprooms in Flagstaff on our Pubpass that were hadn't used yet. Both were dog friendly, so our dog got to come with us. Our first stop was
Grand Canyon Brewing for a drink and lunch. The prickly pear beer was quite tasty.
After lunch, we drove the road to Arizona Snowball,
and admired the aspens along the drive.
We parked in the lot for the Aspen Nature Loop trail. Parking is much easier on a Tuesday than a weekend!
This is a 1.8 mile, fairly flat, easy to walk trail, which is more of a lollipop than true loop. The only thing that makes it slightly challenging is the high elevation (9271 ft / 2825 m).
You start by walking towards the aspens near the base of the ski lifts, with the San Francisco peaks in view.
Once we reached the loop, we decided to go counter clockwise, and soon saw Sasquatch.
As we continued down the trail, we entered the aspen grove. A lot of these trees had already dropped their leaves.
After exiting that grove, we entered a prairie zone. The big white cloud in the top right section of the picture is smoke from a wild fire southwest of Flagstaff.
This gave us a great view of the valley below.
We then headed to another aspen grove.
Many of the trees here still had their leaves.
From here, it was a short walk back to the stick of the lollipop and back to the parking lot.
On the drive back down to town, we saw three elk (no pictures), then headed to
Hops on Birch to use our other PubPass (the tart cherry cider was delicious).
