Road Difficulty Rating to East Willow Trailhead

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osprey
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Road Difficulty Rating to East Willow Trailhead

Post by osprey »

What is the road difficulty rating for the 4WD part of the road going to Phoenix Park?
Is it much harder than the West Willow Creek road?
"Rocks, mountains, snow and ice: what more do we desire?" - Reinhard Karl

“I breathed in the air on the summit and liked it better than the air below.”
Ptglhs
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Re: Road Difficulty Rating to East Willow Trailhead

Post by Ptglhs »

Yes.

Thanks to a comedy of errors someone who was to drop me off at west willow Creek thought that FS 502 (Phoenix park TH) was the location. When we arrived at the sign the road is very rough, 4/6 imo, quite narrow, and we didn't go past the dead end sign. In contrast west willow Creek is 2/6 to the equity mine and 3/6 (highlander, f150, or Subaru can make it) to the TH.
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Re: Road Difficulty Rating to East Willow Trailhead

Post by cottonmountaineering »

I recall phoenix park area being super rough, parked a little ways before the TH
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Re: Road Difficulty Rating to East Willow Trailhead

Post by osprey »

Thank you both Ptglhs ( funny story) and Cottonmountaineering.
"Rocks, mountains, snow and ice: what more do we desire?" - Reinhard Karl

“I breathed in the air on the summit and liked it better than the air below.”
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Dan_Suitor
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Re: Road Difficulty Rating to East Willow Trailhead

Post by Dan_Suitor »

I am looking at doing Phoenix Peak on Sunday. How does the 4wd road compare to other rough 4wd roads? (ex, Lead King Basin). I am debating whether to start at the 502.1A junction or driving back to where trail #787 starts.
Thanks
Century Bound, eventually.
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Re: Road Difficulty Rating to East Willow Trailhead

Post by 9patrickmurphy »

Phoenix Park road is one of the roughest roads I've driven in my stock 4Runner. I scraped a bunch and got into a couple of very sticky spots. I would advise against attempting this road unless you have a lot of offroad experience and some sort of lift. 4Lo required. It only adds 1.5 miles one-way, so I'd advise just walking from the 2WD (and I never advise walking from the 2WD!).
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Re: Road Difficulty Rating to East Willow Trailhead

Post by Dan_Suitor »

9patrickmurphy wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:44 am Phoenix Park road is one of the roughest roads I've driven in my stock 4Runner. I scraped a bunch and got into a couple of very sticky spots. I would advise against attempting this road unless you have a lot of offroad experience and some sort of lift. 4Lo required. It only adds 1.5 miles one-way, so I'd advise just walking from the 2WD (and I never advise walking from the 2WD!).
Thanks. I do have a 4x4 with an off-road package and 4-low. I have taken it on some pretty harry roads, including the full Lead King Basin loop, and it does well. But this one might not be worth the aggravation. Weather is not supposed to be ideal Sunday, so I was trying to get an early start and the closer to #787 the better. I will just get out a little earlier.

BTW: Your link for the different routes to the TH on https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/triprepo ... trip=21021 does not work.
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Re: Road Difficulty Rating to East Willow Trailhead

Post by 9patrickmurphy »

Dan_Suitor wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 11:00 am BTW: Your link for the different routes to the TH on https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/triprepo ... trip=21021 does not work.
Curious, copy/pasting it seems to work.
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Re: Road Difficulty Rating to East Willow Trailhead

Post by supranihilest »

East Willow and Phoenix Park are essentially different monikers for the same trailhead, which is the trailhead here: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/trailhea ... 2011015349. If you like your vehicle don't take it past the switchback mentioned in the directions and just hike the remaining road from there, it's extremely rough. I updated the trailhead name from "Phoenix Park" to "Phoenix Park/E. Willow" to reduce confusion.
9patrickmurphy wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 11:24 am
Dan_Suitor wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 11:00 am BTW: Your link for the different routes to the TH on https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/triprepo ... trip=21021 does not work.
Curious, copy/pasting it seems to work.
You can edit your comment on that TR and enclose the URL using the normal BBCode URL tags - BBCode does work outside of the forum on other parts of the site, it's just not indicated that it does so.
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Dan_Suitor
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Re: Road Difficulty Rating to East Willow Trailhead

Post by Dan_Suitor »

supranihilest wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 11:37 am East Willow and Phoenix Park are essentially different monikers for the same trailhead, which is the trailhead here: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/trailhea ... 2011015349. If you like your vehicle don't take it past the switchback mentioned in the directions and just hike the remaining road from there, it's extremely rough. I updated the trailhead name from "Phoenix Park" to "Phoenix Park/E. Willow" to reduce confusion.
Yea, it was a little confusing at first (I get confused easily), but I came to that conclusion. Updating the name will definitely help in the future. Thanks.
Century Bound, eventually.
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