October 29th – November 4th 2012
We are getting really close to the end of our stay in here.
We are pretty lucky with the weather, mornings are colder, but otherwise the
days are really nice. On Monday, I drove to Fort Valley
trail loop and took long walk. It was really cold to start with, but it got
nicer. It was nice and flat loop winding in the forest. Few times, I got nice
views of San Francisco Peaks.
On Friday, we were heading to the Fossil Creek Wilderness. I
found many articles about very different part of Arizona, so we wanted to see it. There was
one significant drawback; there was about 17 miles drive on dirt road. I tried
to research it, asked at the ranger station, and got some information (not
much). It was supposed to be somewhat maintained road, so we decided to go.
There was some prescribed fire in the forest, so we saw a lot of smoke around
the freeway.
It was a bit more then an hour to get to the beginning of
the dirt road. It was nice drive. It got much worse on the dirt road. It was
hell. We were driving on average 15 miles per hour. The surroundings were nice,
hills and kind of desert.
It took as almost an hour to drive first part (about 14
miles). There was an intersection, left was Fossil Creek and right was Verde River and campground. We had three more miles to
the trail head. In no time, we saw Fossil Creek. Fast moving water and a lot of
greenery around it.
The road got even worse. There was so many rocks and holes,
it was really horrible. We met one guy on ATV, he had his dog with him. Well,
at least compared to Grand Falls drive, there
were some signs.
We stopped by first trail head. There was Forest Service car.
Otherwise, there was no one else, which was really nice. We walked down to the
creek and started to enjoy that incredible view. There was even fish in the
creek.
The trail was supposed to cross the creek, but we could not
find any easy way to do that. Probably, we would have to take shoes off and get
wet. Oh well, we did not want to hike this trail, it was almost ten miles round
trip. We just enjoyed the view, really pleasant temperature, and singing of the
creek.
Next stop was the end of the road and a trail head to the
waterfall. For some reasons, this road was closed and will reopen in spring
2013. Again, there was just us. It was supposed to be a bit over a mile. We had
to walk for a bit on the closed road (it was looking horrible) and then we
followed the creek. It was really nice.
At the end, we found the waterfall and small lake on the
bottom of it. There was as well small cave and rock formation next to the fall.
It was incredibly pretty place.
It wandered around, got up on the rock formation and looked
around and then got back to the base of the fall. J. was swimming in small
lake. It was a bit cold, but not too bad. Well, can we really wish for much
more?
We really enjoyed it, especially because we had whole place
just for ourselves. It was really amazing to be next to the lively creek in the
middle of the desert (more less). After J. was dried, we slowly walked back. J.
was pretty excited, because she could swim there.
We got back to our dirty car (really dusty). And we were not
looking forward to the drive. We made quick stop by one of the pull offs and
then just continued driving. It was endless. We met two cars going in. We
passed the funny shaped rock formation and were more then happy to see paved
road.
It was almost three o’clock, when we were back in Camp Verde.
We were both hungry, so we got lunch (average) in town. Then we had left the
drive back to Flagstaff.
Normal.
On Saturday, we drove to Williams (town close to Flagstaff, about 35
miles). We got there, had serious (and strange) talk about future plans, and
visited the info center. Not helpful. We parked and walked along the main
street. It was nice small town.
At one store, we were told to definitely visit Bearizona
park (drive thru). We were thinking and joking about that, so we figured out
why not. It was 20 dollars per person.
We paid the entrance fee, got the audio guide and were told
to keep our windows closed. And … then we drove thru the park. It was actually
really cool. We saw: Rocky mountain goat, American burro, American bison,
Alaskan tundra wolves, Arctic wolves, Dall sheep, White bison, Rocky mountain
bighorn sheep and Black bear. The park was really nice made and animals were in
close proximity. Definitely worth it.
After we parked, there was an area called Fort Bearizona.
We caught the show about owls (cool). They had couple crows in the cages and
they were taking dollar bills from people and putting them into the jars (it
was funny and great). Unfortunately, J. did not catch them carrying money and
we were as well running out of battery.
There was plenty of domestic animals (chicken, goats,
ponies). They were running between people, which was pretty funny. They as well
had some smaller animals (it looked like zoo). Raccoons, porcupine, fox … a bit
more.
The most entertaining part was the area with baby bears
(about 7 months old). We spent there probably 15 minutes to watch them. One of
them was just walking along the fence, second was in the tree trying to eat
bark. The third bear climbed up the tree and then was balancing between that
and tiny tree next to it. It was really funny.
It got cold. I was in t-shirt and I was cold. When we got to
the car, we decided to go home and just relax. It was pretty nice day.
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