Woods Canyon Lake
This year wa took another late vacation, a late September vacation. We went to Arizona's Mogollon Rim. I found a comfortable, inexpensive cabin near Christopher Creek, about the middle of Rim country. We used the areas as a base to travel both east and west from.
The first day we were there was a Sunday. We knew that there would be a lot of people about, even this late, so we went to the smallest areas we could find: Strawberry and Pine. We drove the roads around the town, stopping at the Strawberry School House and then taking back roads through the forest and by some really nice houses on the hilltop. Strawberry was filled with a lot of lesser cabins. The day was slow, pleasant and relaxing, especially after the rapid drive from Las Vegas the day before. We stopped briefly in Strawberry, looking for information about the area, before we went back to the cabin and relaxed with a book and a glass of wine before making dinner.
The next day we went on a hike on the West Webber trail. The drive in was great, with the rim looming above us but often not visible because of the dense pine forest. The trail was relatively steep and either we missed the turnoff to the Turkey Springs trail or we took a wrong turn. It looked like we were going to continue up to the top of the rim if we continued much farther. So we turned back after a few miles and took an inviting side trail. It gave us a vista of the rim but petered out after about a mile. So we drove back slowly, enjoying the drive.
Leaf Litter
One of the things I wanted to do here was to drive the General Crook trail (Forest Service Road 300). It travels primarily west along the rim for about 100 miles. It is a well graded dirt road with a number of side roads leading off to the north, often to lakes, as it slopes gradually downward to the north. It is at least an all day drive, considering all the side trips. You pick up the road where Arizona 260 crosses the rim near Willow Lake. We saved that lake for a later trip and headed on to our first stop along the road, an overlook at Al Fulton Point. You can see west to Payson (barely, in the distance) and south to the Mazatzal Mountains. After drinking in the scene for a while, we moved on.
The next place we stopped was Woods Canyon Lake. We tried walking around the lake (the first of several similar attempts) but the trail dis not accommodate us. We made it partway around and then came near the dam, which we could not cross. The lake was surrounded by pines interspersed with an occasional aspen. The aspens had turned yellow, so the contrast was nice. We walked back around another side of the lake, but could not make a full circuit. So we decided to spend a little time by the lake, observing the lighting change as the morning progressed.
After Woods Canyon Lake we decided to take a side trip through the woods. We took forest road 183 deeper into the forest until we came to the turnoff for Chevelon Canyon Lake. This was the biggest lake we visited. No chance of walking around it. This lake had more aspens alongside, but there were still not very many. There were a lot of fishing trails along the lake (aside from irrigation, the main purpose of the lake is recreation), so we followed a few, eventually coming to the dam. The viewpoints along the lake were not great, but the fishing appeared to be, as there were several people fishing on a weekday in September. We returned to the General Crook road the way we came. The next lake was Bear Canyon Lake, which was pretty much a repeat of the other lakes. We ate by the lake since it was noon. Like most of our on the road lunches, we had sandwiches that we brought with us. All of the lakes were all pretty and each one would make a nice destination in itself, but all of them had steep hillsides, making it hard to find a place to sprawl out beside them to watch the day go by. Lunch was not uncomfortable, though.
We continued on, stopping to look at the vantage points of Burnt Point and Hi View Point. There had been forest fires a couple of years back and you could see the damage. The trees were burnt down and not much vegetation had grown back yet. A little low brush was present, but it was too late for most wildflowers. So the area looked a little desolate. The drop off from the rim was pretty steep here, so the vantages were nice from that point of view. You could get the best view of Payson from these points. The drive to the west end of the road and the rim) offered few stopping points. The road was more open here; the views more expansive. We enjoyed the views until we came to the paved highway. We followed it back to our cabin, having had a full days drive. We settled in, cooked dinner, and enjoyed the sunset.
We made several trips to the rim area along the General Crook Trail, visiting and revisiting the various lakes. They were a pleasant place to stop and lazily watch the day go by. It was pleasant to recharge along the lakes or to hike in the forest.
Our farthest foray to the north above the rim was to Chevelon Lake. The drive in was nicely forested with pines. We saw few cars along the gravel road and even fewer campers of fishermen at the lake. It is a fairly large lake, so we could not continue a tradition of hiking around the lake. But it was well forested, so the hiking was pleasant. We lunched alongside one of the shorelines.
White Mountain Fall
The next day we went over to Pinetop and Lakeside and beyond. The drive was quite pleasant, wit a number of spots where we stopped on the way back to take pictures of the yellow aspens against either the brown meadows or the green pines (or both). Our first stop was at the visitors center in Lakeside. These are a pair of nice, clean communities on the top if the Rim, high enough that there is skiing in the winter. They are also high enough that it is cool in the summer. After consulting with the helpful people at the center and a drive through downtown, we had plotted the rest of the day. We would head into the White Mountain Apache Reservation and then to Springerville for a trip to Casa Malpais.
The first place we wanted to go was the Apache Cultural Center, but we wither missed it or turned the wrong way somewhere and never found it. But the drive through the reservation was nice, with plenty of forest and grassland along the road. We turned back and, since it was lunchtime, we went to the casino for a pleasant lunch. After that, we headed to Springerville and its museum, where we could sign up for a tour of Casa Malpais, an Ancestral Pueblan ruin. Like may small local museums, this one was filled with local history, which was very interesting. Springerville is an agricultural area, primarily ranching. Ir is a plain with grasslands and volcanic rock. The rock was used to create the dwellings and storage areas used by the ancestral pueblan's. The tour was very informative. The site had buildings in a number of locations along a ridge. It was mostly walls, but you could get an idea of the site from what we walked through. It was very different seeing a dwelling built on a ridge rather than one sheltered by a cliff.
We went through Lakeside on the way home and stopped at a very nice fondue restaurant on the way back to the cabin.
We liked the area between Lakeside and Springerville that we went back on another day, just top see the yellow aspens and the lakes to the south of highway 260. We took the road to Big Lake. At the lake, we did a short hike along the lake front, viewed the camping area, and sat along the lake front for a while. Somewhere along the way we found an outfit for a horseback ride. It was a fairly disappointing ride, a figure 8 through the forest wit no views along the way. Along the road, we stopped a few places to take pictures of the aspens and the mountains behind them.
Tonto Natural Bridge
We went one day to Tonto Natural Bridge State Park. This is north of Payson, a short drive from Christopher Creek. You take a hike to get to the arch and a falls. It is about 3 miles long and fairly steep. But the rewards of the arch and the falls are worth it.
Payson is the largest community in the area. We spent some time there at restaurants, gazing in shops. But the high point of Payson for us was the Rim Country Museum. It had a nice balance between the ranching history of Payson, the Native culture activities that preceded the ranchers, and of the local color like Zane Grey. We thoroughly enjoyed the museum and its displays. The galleries and other attractions were also fun. We returned to Payson on an off day to watch a movie as well. The Shoofly indian ruins is also near Payson. It is much like the Casa Malpais ruins in that it is on a mesa top and the building's remains, though reconstructed somewhat, are more wall than anything else.
The vacation was restful yet we were able to do a lot. Even so, we barely scratched the surface for hiking trails and back roads. There is plenty more to do for a return trip.
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