Independence day at West Clear Creek

For Independence day we sought to get out of the Phoenix Metro area, and the heat, and go where it would be a little cooler and we could enjoy walking in the forest (a real forest, not a cactus forest...).  We drove 2 hours up to Camp Verde, and to the West Clear Creek wilderness area.  There is a trail that follows Clear Creek for a ways, and the creek itself, with pools and plenty of places to jump in and get wet.  Camp Verde is only about 10 degrees cooler than Phoenix, so splashing in the water would be welcome.

The trailhead is in the Bull Pen day-use area, at the end of Bull Pen Road.  The trail goes past the namesake for the area, the former Bull Pen Ranch.  Bull Pen Road is drivable by regular cars (we saw sedans and minivans in the parking lot) but I was glad we had a high-clearance vehicle, there were a few deep ruts and large rocks that would really rip up a smaller car.

Have fun!

Within view of the parking area was a cliff face that really looked like a face - broad smiling mouth, wide-set eyes.  Almost like it was talking to us.  The first mile or so of the trail goes through a meadow, and past the old ranch house, before dropping to the creek.  There is creek access closer to the parking lot, which was full of people up picnicking and splashing - a little louder than I would prefer.  Walking across the meadow was a little hot in the sun, but with good views of the surrounding cliffs.  The meadow climbed up a little bit, leaving the creek in a canyon - it wouldn't be easy to work up along the creek for very far.

Bull Pen Ranch

First view of the creek - upstream

Once we got to the creek it was shady and much cooler.  The trail went along the north side of the creek for a while, on a narrow bit of land and rock, with rock stairs in a few places, before coming to the first stream crossing.

Looking downstream

We crossed the stream at two places - the first was a little deeper, past my knees, the second was shallower than that.  Between the two crossing we moved from the day-use area into the wilderness.  The Clear Creek Wilderness extends the whole length of the creek in the Coconino National Forest, the trail goes for 8 miles before climbing out of the canyon.  Past the end of the trail (another 20 miles or so) is harder navigation, with some places requiring swimming in the creek between steep canyon walls.  We only went about half a mile past the second crossing, before deciding that the sky didn't look favorable for continuing the trek (unless we wanted to possibly extend our stay in the creek longer than I would prefer...)  

 We could see darker clouds gathering around, as we returned to the first stream crossing, which had a number of large rocks to sit on while we ate our lunch.  The kids went out into the creek and splashed a bit - walking in the water was really nice and cool.  We played until we started hearing thunder.  Not wanting to get caught on the wrong side of the creek if the water started to rise, we crossed and started back towards the parking lot.

We walked about 10 minutes before it started to rain a little, then another 2-3 minutes before the skies opened up and we broke out the raincoats and ponchos (at least those who brought them...).  The rain continued until we got back to the car, by which time it was starting to slow down.  The parking lot didn't get as much rain as the canyon did.  I was quite wet by the time we reached the car.

All in all - a really nice trail and a nice canyon.  Once we got a little ways along the creek on the trail we didn't see any other people, the people up to splash for the day stayed within about a mile of the parking lot.  The rain wasn't a huge problem, it was still pretty warm (in the 80s) so once the rain stopped it wasn't too uncomfortable.

A few lessons learned:

• Waterproof hiking shoes are not the best to wear on a trail with stream crossings.  Reading about the trail it sounded like it was possible to manage the first few crossings without getting in too deep, but the water might have been a little higher.  I didn't really get all the water out of my shoes until I took them off, and even then they were damp 2 days later.
• I didn't prepare for the weather like I wish I had.  I packed more for lazing in the shade than for a thunderstorm.  If we had been caught across the creek and the water rose substantially we might have been there a little while, and we didn't really have supplies for that.  Having at least a tarp would have been good, along with a few more emergency food supplies and fire-making supplies.
• Cool water feels awesome on a hot summer day.

A few more pictures from the trail.  The creek cuts through the red sandstone that makes Sedona so beautiful, so we had pretty red walls to look at through the trees in the creek bed.