Down the Wash, Red Mountain

Hiking down the wash from the volcanic amphitheater at Red Mountain, Coconino National Forest (click on image for a larger version)

Red Mountain on the Coconino National Forest north of Flagstaff, Arizona is a million year old, thousand foot tall cinder cone volcano. Was, that is.

The U.S. Forest Service trail that accesses the amphitheater on the east side of the mountain drops down into the wash that drains it, on the final approach. You hike right up the wash. It's not as if you're trampling any vegetation, because desert washes are so inhospitable to vegetation. Any significant rains above become flash floods, small or large. 

Besides, the steep, loose, ever-eroding volcanic soil slopes on either side could not support a trail anyway.