9.2 miles round trip, 2400' up (and then down), some off route. One starts at about 8600' and climbs to 11,100' at Snowslide Spring, a Flagstaff water source in an avalanche path. Starting from the Lockett Meadow TH, one climbs through a gorgeous Aspen sister forest and into the Inner Basin. Branching off from the main route, this hike goes very steeply up an old spring access track to Snowslide Spring. The route continues off-trail up onto a low ridge and then finally off it to return to the Inner Basin via the track to Weatherford Trail. Be careful up on top, loose rock, steep slopes. http://wildernessvagabond.com/reports.htm Kachina Peaks Wilderness. From the USFS, Peaks District of the Coconino NF: The San Francisco Peaks are actually the remains of a Pleistocene stratovolcano similar to Washington’s Mt. Saint Helens. From the Inner Basin's rims, avalanche tracks streak down the talus slopes. In 1889, C. Hart Merriam carried out an extensive biological survey of the San Francisco Peaks. Merriam and his expedition members arrived in Flagstaff on July 26, 1889. For the next two months, the scientists completed extensive fieldwork in northern Arizona. The incomparable biodiversity witnessed by Merriam and his party in this relatively small geographic area led to his first publications delineating "life zones" on a regional scale. Merriam believed that climatic gradients, especially temperature, largely determined what type of vegetative community would occur in any given location, and that these gradients were largely a function of latitude and elevation. Merriam used his work on San Francisco Mountain to extrapolate life zones for all of North America. He completed a map in 1893 delineating the major life zones of the continent. His conclusions significantly influenced early biological thought about the American west. The Inner Basin contains a luxuriant sub-alpine environment and the Inner Basin Trail passes through a variety of striking and fascinating vegetation including extensive stands of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii). Many shrubs grow in the area including willow (Salix scouleriana), gooseberry (Ribes pinetorum) and mountain snowberry (Symphoricarpos oreophilus). Delightful native wildflowers such as the silvery lupine (Lupinus argenteus), Richardson’s geranium (Geranium richardsonii), firecracker penstemon (Penstemon eatonii) mountain monardella (Monardella odoratissima), heartleaf arnica (Arnica cordifolia), and red baneberry (Actaea rubra) may be seen along the trail.