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Again, we were sad to leave Apache Lake and contemplated staying another night. But decided we should move on. We headed up the 87 and stopped in Payson to check it out. Nothing to write home about but we only went through the main area. We couldn’t believe there were no coffee shops open on a Sunday for mommy to update her blog, only 2 Starbucks inside grocery stores. A very seasonal town for sure! A nice man at the gas station told us to go to Woods Canyon Lake and that is what the gal and Facebook said to so off we went! The drive on the 260 East was really beautiful and we were so happy to see trees!
We turned left on Forest Road 300 and the lake wasn’t too far down the road. It was super windy!
All of the campgrounds near the lake were still closed for the season so we were told to go camp for free on Forest Road 9350. Sounded good to us! There were 45 spaces and you could camp on any open ones. We picked one that didn’t have any trees over top of us just in case the strong wind blew one down!
We parked Spirit and took off hiking! We walked to the end of the road where we met the camp hosts for the next road over. Super nice people that gave us a bunch of info. At the end of the road, there was a trail called the Aspen Trail so we took it!
It was so awesome. The trail kept intersecting with other trails so we just took our best guess because who cares! We hadn’t been on any of them before! There were so many trees! We saw 2 families of Elk but they wouldn’t allow mommy to take their photo! They ran away.
We didn’t find a lake but guess what we found!? SNOW!! It was so fun to play in!
We ended up hiking 5.5 miles and the only reason we turned around is because it was getting dark! We got to see another beautiful sunset from Spirit.
The next morning, it was windy and cold so I got to sleep in while mommy read her book under the covers!
We decided to go check out the one trail that we didn’t hike on yet and guess where it took us!? To a little pond! Mommy couldn’t resist my face so she let me SWIM!!
The trail ended by where they are piling all of the tress that they are chopping down. It is so sad. The Park Hosts were not happy about it. They said nature takes care of it, they don’t need help from the forest service. By the looks of it, they are going to be chopping down a lot more! The road in is so sparse of trees now.
After lunch, we decided to move Spirit to the next road over, (#195). The camp hosts lived on that road and said that there was a trail that led to the lake so of course we had to check that out! They were not kidding! A mile into the trail and we saw it!!
I ran down so fast and started barking to tell mommy that YES! There was a LAKE!
I got to swim again! I even got to rock dive!
Then we realized that there was a 5.2 mile trail around the lake so we decided to hike it. It was so cool to be next to the lake the entire time. It was so pretty back there and the trail was really nice.
The trails in Arizona are very well marked with metal tags on the trees. It was very helpful. We wish California would do that! I even go to play in the snow again and swim next to it! It was so cool (cold!).
We ended up hiking 9.5 miles that day! I was such a tired boy. I took a little nap while mommy was drying me off after I swam and swam and swam!
Mommy stopped to thank the nice park hosts for telling us about the trail. They were so nice and super interesting. So much so that mommy stayed and talked to them for a long time! She loves talking to all of the park hosts that she meets.
What a great area to hike and swim. We scored at this place! Too bad it was so windy but the temperature was perfect for hiking and the sun was out so we were NOT complaining! That night we thought a tree was going to blow over on Spirit and we think we heard it rain a few drops and then all of a sudden the wind stopped! Yayy!!
The next morning was super cold. We slept in a little and then drove to the next lake down called Willow Spring Lake. We scored as we got to watch them stock the lake with over 3,000 Striped Trout. It was pretty cool. Daddy was wishing he was here to go fishing for our dinner!
Mommy wanted to check out the White Mountains but it is still really cold there. We decided to head back down to the Phoenix area for warmth. This is great hiking weather but I am limping a little so mommy does not want to do much more hiking. We want to SUP some more so we are going to check out Bartlett Lake! Thanks for joining us on our Arizona adventure!
