Fall is a great time in the White Mountains of Arizona! The Alltrails app helped us narrow down our hiking choices and we decided on this Thompson Trail Hike. The drive from our boondocking spot took us out the road past the turnoff for Sunrise Ski Resort through Apache Reservation country and back into forest.
The hike follows the course of the West Fork of the Black River and goes through the area of the Wallow Fire, which burned 538,049 acres in the White Mountains in 2011. Black River is a 114-miles long and merges before draining into the Salt River and Gila Rivers. The forest is bounding back with greens of every shade and this time of year, oranges and reds are starting to pop. A carpet of thick grasses and clusters of young aspens led to meadows and then back deeper into an alpine forest of white pines, Engelmann spruce, Colorado blue spruce and Douglas firs
Not far in we came upon an “Apache Trout Fish Barrier.” The man-made blockade functions as a waterfall, preventing non-native fish from moving into the Apache trout’s habitat. The fish is one of only two trout species that are native to Arizona — the other is the Gila trout. Both are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and barriers such as these have helped restore the 10-inch-long fish to its historical habitat.
The hike is pretty easy, it meanders along the river with some rocky sections here and there. It’s fast hiking without much elevation change, though as I always caveat these posts, if you aren’t used to altitude this will be hard. Thomspson Trail is entirely above 8500′. The trail eventually meets up with another trail that crosses the river and heads up the opposite canyon to Big Lake. We decided to save that for another day and we turned around and headed back. Great hike and I recommend it.
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