Because I live in Tempe to attend Arizona State University, I was sure I wouldn't be able to see trees covered in yellow leaves or smell fresh air provided by nature before winter hit. And because fall is my absolute favorite season — I mean, how can you not like fall? C'mon, people — it would be an understatement to say the thought was upsetting me.
I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not that Halloween decorations on my neighbor's dorm doors aren't great and all, but I was pretty tired of not being able to see vibrantly colored trees. Now I had seen the leaves changing colors one other time in my life when my dad drove my mom, sister and I all the way to the south rim of the Grand Canyon mid-fall for that exact purpose. The trees I saw during that trip were beautiful! That's also a really great adventure to go on (by the way), but I only got to see those trees from a distance. I could only admire them and all their grandeur from afar so to speak.
This weekend, though, I got to do something different. I got to hike through autumn trees! My family and I went up to Flagstaff for a short but seriously needed escape and decided we wanted to hike Lockett Meadow, which is near Humphrey's Peak close to Flagstaff. We hiked all the way through Basin Trail where the view was absolutely beautiful!
The dirt road to the trail was not too bumpy or hard to navigate! Directions to get there were also easy to follow (granted I will admit I did not actually have to navigate, but my dad didn't get lost!). One thing I will say, though, is that there was not a whole lot of parking. We got there pretty early in the morning and got one of the last free parking spots. There are parking spots you can pay to park at, but it was my impression that you have to reserve them ahead of time.
There are so many trails to hike on near Lockett meadow. You could hike around there for a week or so and still have places to go. If you wanted to stay for a while or even go camping, there was also a campground site very close to the start of the trail.
One of my favorite parts of this hike other than the colorful leaves was all of the aspens. I had seen aspens before but never so many in one place in my life! At one point during the hike, we were completely surrounded by aspens as far as the eye could see. You can see what I'm talking about in the pictures below. It was beautiful!
