It's been a long time- Potato Lake

Sorry for the long delay since my last post. My original email was not only hacked, but hijacked. It's taken me awhile to get around to all of the sites, links, addresses that the stolen email address was linked to. So, Most Recent Hike was to Potato Lake, north of Payson Arizona. We drove north on Highway 85 and turned off just past mile marker 281 onto the 300 Control Road. Following that road for about a 1.7 miles, we pulled off to the left onto forest road 9362T and parked in a camp site. A trail leads from there along 9362T to the white stake and go right. At 1.2 miles you'll reach an intersection just past several huge logs across the trail to forest road 147B. Follow that to the left along a fence on the left. It's about 2 miles downhill to Potato Lake. The lake is at 34 27.771N, 111 20.796W elevation at the lake is 7262 feet.

There were about 25 of us Tuesday. The day started cool. Cool enough at that altitude (7000+ feet) that a few people put on light jackets. We've just entered monsoon season and the day was pretty muggy for Arizona. Anyway, we trekked downhill, through ponderosa pine and a LOT of ferns. What with the ferns and the humidity I felt as though I were back in upstate New York.

Once at the lake we all sat on this fallen log, yeah, it was THAT long, and had a snack. There were some pretty pink water plants in the pond. My flowers of Arizona book doesn't list them.

The hike out was uphill all two miles. It was getting hot too, so we all took it pretty slow. A side benefit of going slow was that we found wild black raspberries. We all started picking. What a nice treat. Too bad the guys with the cameras weren't there, I'd have liked pics of all of us adults grabbing raspberries like wild bears. Anyway, we were back in Payson by noon. It was about a four mile round trip.