Postholing in Snowizona

Those of you outside of Arizona might not realize that, on Thursday, February 21, 2019, Arizona experience a snowstorm of unprecedented proportions.  It caused us to divert our motorhome route from Peach Springs (right in the eye of the storm), down south to Salome, where the storm was merely rain.  Lucky we did, because I-40 was closed east of Kingman, as were many roads in the area.  We hunkered down until the rain ended, using Friday to catch up on logistical and planning issues.

Today is Saturday, February 23, 2019, and, once we watched the news to discover that Prescott, Arizona had been pelted with nearly 3 feet of snow -- an unprecedented snowfall -- we decided to drive up in our Jeep and find a place to go snowshoeing.  Our campground in Salome is only about 1.5 hours from Prescott, so off we set.

Above Congress, we climbed into the mountains and got a preview of our day.  The highway directed us into the snow zone:

Further up, as we approached the city of Prescott, the mountains in Prescott National Forest welcomed us:

We decided to drive into Prescott to see if the local tourist information office could give us suggestions for places to snowshoe.

Nope.

The tourist office was closed due to snow, even though it was supposed to be open.  We decided to head back out to explore a forest road we had seen on the way up.  But first we had to stop for coffees -- lattes, that is.  We found ourselves in the center of Prescott, at Firehouse Coffee Company, right across Courthouse Plaza from the County Court House:

Not having the advice of the locals, we returned to the forest road we spotted on the way up to Prescott.  Another few miles and we were out of the Jeep, strapped on our snowshoes, and identifying our trailhead:  the beginning of Forest Road 73:

The snow was almost 3 feet deep.  Kathy jumped into it with eagerness --

-- and David strapped on his snowshoes with abandon:

We schussed down FR 73 eagerly.  Kathy had the glow of excitement in her cheeks:

Along the way, we spotted animal tracks -- mainly rabbit:

To our surprise, about a half mile down the road, we ran into a gate posted with "No Trespassing" signs.  It was lunchtime, so we stopped to eat our lunch and ponder our next adventure on snowshoes:

We had passed Forest Road 73A as we trekked downhill.  We decided to hike back up and see what 73A had to offer.  Here, David explores the virgin snow and leads the way "up" FR 73A, which happens to climb this steep hill:

OMG, the snowshoeing was hard -- 3 feet deep, up a steep hill.  Because Arizona got a soft, powdery snow, it sank beneath our snowshoes, and we post-holed at least 2 feet on every step.  Lifting our feet was laborious because we had to drag snow back up with us on every step.  Perhaps the hardest half mile we ever hiked.  But the scenery was magnificent:

Mountains one direction, and sky and feathery clouds the other:

We reached the height of land, and had an unimpeded view across 270 degrees:

Kathy grinned, knowing that we had finished the hard part, and all we had to do was snowshoe down through our own tracks.  Piece of cake!

We worked our way back down the mountain to the original road, and then back up to our Jeep on the highway.  It was a full-body workout, compounded by maximum aerobic exercise.  But we were up to it.  We reached the Jeep and sank into the seats, feeling the endorphins coursing through the bottoms of our lungs and the rest of our bodies.  Our ride home was euphoric!

Just to get an idea what we saw at the top, take a look at this 360-degree view from the height of our snowshoe.

Wow.  What will we do tomorrow to top this?