TotSW: Playing around Flagstaff

I like playing in creeks and calling it hiking.  Flagstaff, being near the Mogollon Rim where water pours off the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau, has no shortage of fun creeks and canyons to explore.  All one needs to do is head south on 89A, which in my head is designated as an Adventure Road, given how many ridiculous outings I did around here when I used to live in AZ.   I have a book that points out where to park to hare off into the canyons.  And lots of maps.  And perhaps odd notions of what is fun.  My family was doomed to a bushwhacking expedition.

In this case, we chose to drop into Pumphouse Wash from above, and explore as far down towards the junction with Oak Creek as people would tolerate.  It is a drainage I hadn't done before, wasn't too far from town, and looked likely to have a reasonable water level at that point.

Near where we dropped in.

Kid might have heard "slot canyon" when I said "canyon", and was somewhat disturbed by all the vegetation and rocks in the wide upper part of the drainage.  I will admit the rockhopping was hard on the ankles.

But, ho!  What's that?

Cliffs start to appear on either side!

Pools of water at the base of the cliffs become more common.

Features that require scrambling and climbing appear!

Arches make things more scenic.

And thus, the kid mood was restored.

Chad and I, of course, were having tons of fun.  And it just got better as the canyon narrowed and the pools started to fill in.

Aiiieee!  It gets deep.  Cool water feels great on a hot day.

While Chad and I opted for the water route, the kiddo declared "Land Creature" status and skirted through brushy vegetation on the side.

Most excellent ripple reflections on the rock.  We were lucky to hit just the right time of day for the optimal sun angle here.

Eventually, we hit a point where the canyon narrowed and swimming was required.  Land Creature Kid refused to go in, and we knew we still had to work our way back to the truck, so we deemed this the turnaround point.  After the adults swam and looked around the corner, of course.

On the way out, I found a shortcut bushwhack up the side of the drainage to a campground, so we got to avoid repeating the initial boulder field section.  The open woods in these parts is really quite nice.

Land Creature Kid, who is squeamish about water, much prefers bug friends.  Weird.

While my knee did well on that excursion, it was tired, so we scaled things back to a more civilized outing the following day.  It did, however, involve another canyon.

In this case, Walnut Canyon National Monument.  If you look closely at the canyon walls, there are cliff dwellings everywhere.  How fun!

There is a steep, but short hike down to the and back up to the "island" in the bend of the drainage where many well-preserved structures are still present.

Hungry teen pillages snacks from mom's pack.  Or maybe I just asked said kid to get something out for me...

We had a fine morning exploring the area.  Access is limited to designated trails, but there was still plenty to see.

The way the rock here eroded out into layers leaving natural roofs reminded us a lot of prehistoric dwellings we saw on our trip to France several years back.

Happy hikers.

Small bird friend.  The kiddo likes birds almost as much as bugs.

After lunch, we headed over to Sunset Crater National Monument (can you tell we made good use of our Park Pass this year?)  One thing I didn't properly realize when I lived in AZ previously is how much volcanic activity there has been near Flagstaff.  The San Francisco Peaks (the snowy peaks in the distance) are actually remnants of a dormant volcano.  Odd that I've skied on slopes here without noticing I was on was a giant volcano...all that voluminous Arizona snow must have obscured the landscape.  Ha.

We had originally thought we might climb the highest point -- Humpreys Peak -- on this trip, but there was still so much snow on the trail even in June that crampons were recommended.  Normally, that'd be no big deal, but combining "crampons recommended" with a somewhat gimpy knee seemed unwise, so we contented ourselves with gazing upon the mountain from a distance.

The real attraction of Sunset Crater is the cinder cones.  We wandered our way around the interpretive trail

 and found fun volcanic features to investigate.

Features in this area really reminded me of things we saw on year-before-last's Tour of the Volcanoes, not surprisingly.

And then it was time to go back to town and find another fine place to eat.  In this case, delicious ramen, after Chad and I wandered around galleries and outdoor shops.  Old town Flagstaff is a fine place to wander about in the evening.

Kean stayed back in the motel room drawing while Chad and I wandered about, but walked over and found us in time for dinner.  This is a great use case for setting up your phones to track family members!