Payson Labor Day Hike

On Labor day, C and I decided to take a drive to the woods to escape the heat. From our house, Payson, Arizona is only a one and a half hour drive, and most of that is going through a beautifully scenic landscape. Going north to Payson from Phoenix on highway 87, you pass Fountain Hills, an Arizona's epicenter of wealth and the tallest fountain in the world (which, if you're lucky, you can see from the road). On the right in the distance are the Superstition Mountains, which host hikes of all skill levels (I recommend the Lost Dutchman trail), and off towards the north of the Superstitions are Four Peaks, one of the most famous mountains in Arizona for the fact that it is featured on everyone's license plates. This is one of my favorite drives in Arizona. You start off in the desert valley surrounded by saguaros of all shapes and sizes, and eventually climb into a juniper and pine forest with spectacular mountain views.

We had an amazing drive up to Payson, but our time after that was a bit rough. C and I got to the Horton Creek Trail #285 and realized we had forgotten our water bottles at home. Luckily, a family offered to share a few of theirs with us, and we were able to continue hiking. The weather was very mild, and there were lots of overcast clouds around us. This should have tipped us off that we were about to get some rain, but we had come so far that we didn't want to turn back.

We started the hike and went about 2.5 miles before we got hungry. There was a little creek that ran next to us, and we decided to cross to the other side and have lunch on a fallen tree. C had his Keane's and could just walk through the creek, but I decided to take my shoes off so I wouldn't get them wet and cross barefoot. The water was VERY cold! We enjoyed watching the water and the blue moths (or butterflies) that fluttered around us. It had started to sprinkle and we were halfway through our water supply, so we decided to turn around.

Our view up the creek from our lunch spot.

On our way back, the rain picked up more and more, but we were enjoying our hike and were slightly used to hiking in Washington where it rains most of the time, so we weren't phased. It wasn't until we saw lightning and heard thunder crash right above our heads that we freaked out and started jogging down the trail as fast as we could. Poor Ella was even scared by the noise and commotion and had started to bawl. The lightning and thunder followed us for a bit, and I couldn't help but pray aloud for our lives. We were on top of a hill that had sparse tree cover in some spots, so we felt pretty vulnerable to the lightning that was pretty close to us. We slipped and slid through some thick mud on the trail, but we eventually made it back to the trailhead safely.

There was a Tonto Creek Fish Hatchery that I had gone to when I was a kid that was close by, so we decided to visit that before leaving the area. We had fun feeding the trout that were there and marveled at how big and beautiful some of the older Rainbow trout were in the hatchery's show pond. By this time, we were soaked with water and there was a breeze, so we were very cold. But we still managed to stop at the Paleo Site on our way back into town, and had fun digging around for fossils. It took a bit to find a good specimen, but we found a sedimentary rock with fossilized sea shells and other types of barnacles in it.

We had seen some semi-bad traffic on our way up into the forest, but for some reason didn't think that it would get as bad as that. Our mistake! It seemed like everyone in the valley had gone up to the forest for Labor Day and were coming home the same time we were. It was 12 miles back into Payson, and we spent that entire drive stopping and going 5 mph at most. It took us more than an hour to get to town, and by then, we were frazzled by the traffic. After stopping to have dinner in Payson, our drive back to the valley wasn't so bad, though.

We had a lot of fun on our trip up north, but definitely learned our lesson about going out of town on holidays.