Backpacking Adventure - Day three part two - Feb 27 - further on to Mount Lemmon trail

After we had full water containers, we continued our hike. The trail was changing before our eyes as we ascended the ridge that we saw looming ahead since the previous evening. There was evidence of the fire that burnt the mountain in the so-called "Aspen fire" in 2003, but it wasn't a wasteland, and there was much evidence that the mountain was mostly reforested since that fire.

The views continued to get better in the distance as we rose above the wilderness of rocks on the steep trail headed south toward the Mount Lemmon trail junction with Wilderness of rocks trail. One is able to see more features of the area in the distance, but the ever present rocks are still to be found along the trail.

After hiking for slightly less than an hour, we finally reached the junction with Mount lemmon trail. We felt pretty good about finally being able to check the box of having finished the wilderness of rocks trail. It seemed like we were being kept on that trail by events and bad luck, so we decided to take 15 minutes and catch our breath, rehydrate, and enjoy the views in the west and north.

After we had been there for about 5 minutes, we met a hiker that had started hiking from Romero Trailhead that morning. We had hiked about 1 mile that morning, and he had hiked about 10 miles. We had 35 pound packs on our back though, while he had hiked up about 5,000 feet in elevation. We felt some envy with his ability to zoom down the trail. He was the only other person that we had seen for about two days. We took pictures of the trail junction, and then continued on up the trail to the south refreshed by our brief rest and rehydration stop.