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| Hiking | 2.79 Miles |
578 AEG |
| | Hiking | 2.79 Miles | | | |
| 578 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Woke up from camping and the hot sun had us ready to hit the swimming hole early, so we skippeed up Houston Mesa Rd on the way to Ellison Cascades. On the way I saw the sign for Water Wheel, which sounded familiar, and clearly alluded to the opportunity to quickly jump in, so we spontaneously hopped off the road and headed for the creek.
Keep in mind we didn't plan on heading here so I hadn't done backgroud on Water Wheel, but figured that if we just hiked along the creek we were sure to find it. Well, there are a few social trails, and a lack of map or trailhead at the parking lot, so we headed south along a well-defined trail. Why not? After ~.75 mile of a fun hike along the creek, but no sign of anything that resembled a water wheel (whatever that was supposed to be:)), we headed back, thinking it was a fun, but underwhelming detour. ](https://hikearizona.com/dex2/images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall")
I bumped into a few hikers at the parking lot to learn what the hubub was about only to learn it was to the north (I hope the other wandering family on the southern trail  figured this out also...), and we went for it. Good thing we did. Maybe .1 miles from the parking lot sure enough we see a trailhead, which wasn't visible from the parking area or outhouse at all. poor placement...
We scrambled up to the fork with Ellison and crossed from there, heading further to the famed swimming hole with log-ladder that always shows up in the pics...Ellison tails off and we lost it, so we headed back, anxious to spend some real time at a swimming hole rather than just wading in the water at stream crossings. Just below the water wheel (I think) we found a jumping rock with a ~8 well beneath it and went for it. Freeezing but awesome. We jumped a few times for a body shock and hung out on the rocks until we could feel our skin again.
I'll be returning to take this trail all the way to Ellison Cascades as originally planned and to get to the photo-famous swimming hole. But no regrets on the helluvah ro  ck jumping nook that I found  |
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Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.
Evan Hardin
Footloose adventures are documented instagram @afrankie8. |
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