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| Hiking | 4.07 Miles |
356 AEG |
| | Hiking | 4.07 Miles | 2 Hrs 13 Mns | | 2.09 mph |
| 356 ft AEG | 16 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | My brother suggested we come up for the 4th and we could celebrate his wife's 60th birthday too (it was on June 30). Sounded good to me so we (my niece Mia) drove up Thur morning and decided to do the hike today rather than tomorrow. Well the traffic going into Payson was backed up from the first traffic light to where you top the hill from Phx. Fortunately it kept moving. I thot for sure it would be backed before the 260 turn but it wasn't. We were able to find one of the last remaining parking spots at the Marina and be on our way.
I missed the start of the trail a little but no big deal. We decided to hike it the opposite way of the last time we hiked this in 2013 and thus went clockwise. In looking back, I thought I had hiked this more than 4 times. We did end up off-trailing a few times as I always tried to stay closest to the lake. It appears that many times there is an upper and lower trail. We enjoyed the smell and breeze  as we made our way west. When we got toward the end of the finger, another hiker tried to indicate where to turn. The couple behind us had trouble understanding too.
Well we crossed the outlet and instead of heading east, we hiked a path up the hill that was marked by pink ribbons. There were a couple other gals who were ahead of us doing the same thing. I bet that other hiker also gave them confusing directions too. It was a short, but somewhat steep hill that topped out and took you toward a road. It dawned on us that that may have been a workers route but what for is anybody's guess. We all headed east until you're above the lake and then made our way down. No trail, of course, but very doable.
Now we were back on the trail and continued our hike. The people with the dog behind us made their way down too. We would see them again when we were having a beverage on a bench at the marina. They stopped for lunch during the hike. We didn't run into anyone hiking the opposite way of us. We checked out some of the fish at the end of that NW finger. We continued on our way and Mia noticed what she thot was the eagles on the other side of the lake, but they were Osprey. I was on full 30x zoom to determine that. Next we saw a rock cutout so we played around with that for some photos.
We arrived at the dam to a beautiful scene of the lake and all its activities along with some perfectly placed poofy clouds. We crossed over to the other side and as we were walking on this southside we saw a telescope. And somehow our inquisitive nature caught the attention of the person in charge and she let us look through it to see the young eagles across the way. It is her job with the G&F to survey them as long as they are there. It's a tough job, but I guess someone has to do it  . We finished off the hike by staying close to the water. There were lots of people, of course, but we managed just fine.
I brot a Huck It and we found a bench with a view of the lake to enjoy. We ate at El Rancho on our way to see Rick and the family at cousin Dennis's house; a place we hung out when I used to bring the 3 seniors up here a couple times during the summer, before Dennis moved here permanently. Dennis has his house and a huge hangar there since 2000. He steers his airplane from the airstrip to this.
The pilots and HOA were having a potluck at the airport park so we ended up going to that. We missed the F-35 flyover, though we did hear them. The potluck was pretty awesome with good food, people and location just off the runway. We could see the smoke we had seen earlier on our hike. (The next evening we would see a helicopter on its way to the fire). Around 8:30PM, Tonto 3 got to try to be an airplane as we navigated down the runway toward the area we would be able to watch the fireworks. We had a great view and it wasn't too loud. It didn't last too long; about 15 minutes. I did get quite a bit of [ youtube video ]
WATCH 3.58 miles, 10:22AM-12:34PM, 2:11:41, 8038-8155 elevation, burning 286 calories, 130bpm/160 max. Temp 86, sunny, slight breeze here and there, 28% humidity. |
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Wildflowers Observation Light
Lots of Columbine and Wild Roses.
Some Wild Parsnip, a couple St Johns Wort and Self-Heal, a couple Sneezeweed, one Paintbrush |
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For me, sometimes it's just as much about the journey as the destination.
Oh, and once in awhile, don't forget to look back at the trail you've traveled. |
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