Woods Canyon Lake Overflow hike

We decided today to do the hike we postponed last Tuesday due to inches of rain right up until the hike. Today however, was sunny and the last rain was two days ago so off we all went.

We arrived at the lake parking lot, by the little store they have there. We crossed the parking lot to the right and headed directly for the dam. Here, the overflow is actually bedrock and there is a trail that leads to the right, following the water course.

Since we've had monsoon rains for a few days, the entire area was green and the little outflow stream was there, watering all the plants. The hike was pretty level, running along the bottom of the canyon. We had to cross back and forth across the small stream several times but there were no slippery rock mishaps.

There were 23 of us today enjoying the cool mountain breeze flowing through the bottom of the canyon. We stopped for snack about 1 1/2 into the hike along the stream side there there were a lot of rocks to sit on.

That gave me the chance to pull out my Flowers of Arizona book and look up the name of a small blue flower growing on a stem with leaves that looked like blades of grass. I thought it might be Blue-eyed grass but it turns out it is Birds Bill Dayflower. Very pretty. There were several other flowers along the way, one very dark red called a cinqefoil. Butterflies were out in force but wouldn't hold still long enough for Randy to get a picture. On the way back to the dam, we encountered a blue heron standing in the reeds along the small creek. What a nice surprise. We also spotted an eagle's nest in the top of a dead tree but didn't see any eagles near it.

Overall, a great day for a very nice hike. This, I'm sure, will be a group favorite for many years to come.

Poverty Spring Hike

So last Tuesday the Payson Packers C Group (for those who haven't been following, there are so many hikers in the Payson Packers that we've divided up into groups, loosely based on hiking level and the desire (or not) to bushwhack) went on a hike north of Payson to a place called Poverty Spring. We parked our cars off of a forest road near the spring. We could see how the spring overflow (none this time of year) carved a path downhill to the Pine Canyon. We hiked along a side road, going through 2 cattle gates and down a steep slope into the canyon.

After that, it was all level hiking, back and forth over the creek bed formed from the Spring overflow.

There was still water in the creek bed and it made a lush landscape of grasses. There were tons of daisies all along the banks and really pretty burnt orange butterflies with dark spots fluttering all around. What really made the hike kind of dramatic were the steep sandstone walls on either side of us. This isn't a slot canyon but it's certainly not really wide. Foliage

growing up the sides, yellow columbines at the wall base and bright blue skies above made the walls stunning. Since the water wasn't flowing I expected a lot of mosquitoes but no, no mosquitoes, thank goodness. There was however, plenty of evidence of deer all along the creek. It's pretty dry here this time of year and I expect the water is a welcome sight for thirsty animals. We stopped at a shady spot about 2.3 miles into the canyon and had our turn around break.

A chance to have a snack, enjoy the area and chat with our fellow hikers. While we were there, one of the orange butterflies decided to land on a fellow hiker's wrist. How cool is that? So snack done we hiked out, getting to the cars about 11am. Right now the Tonto National Forest is closed to hikers. The dry weather has made fire danger extremely high.

The Poverty Springs hike is in the Coconino National Forest. It's still open but they've been having fires there too so it may close if we don't get the Monsoon rains soon. The Apache-Sitgreaves National forest to our east is also still open but again, without rain, that too may close. So then we'll be down to hiking around town. All of you east coaster's, send some rain our way!