Christopher Creek August 16

Arizona was calling me back again. This time to spend a few days canyoning on the Mogollon Rim, the abrupt southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau near Payson and Sedona. To places where deep canyons are incised into the rim and water is surprisingly prevalent. We camped near Christopher Creek ready for an early start. This one had probably the easiest approach of any canyon I have done so far. It was less than 10 minutes along an easy downhill path to comfortable bedrock patios where we suited up.

The canyon is really more of a gorge, a relatively high flow stream dropping through waterfalls and pools as layers of red quartzite build up and around. Virtually everything could be downclimbed or jumped including jumps up to about 30ft. The only unfortunate thing is that the water was extremely opaque so all the bigger jumps had to be scouted first to avoid serious injury. We had a great time jumping, sliding and swimming our way down the refreshing waters. Sam had hardly ever jumped before but he quickly gained confidence and was jumping some of the bigger jumps without hesitation.

Towards the end the canyon seems to pick up a bit more steam. We came across an impressive 25ft waterfall into a bottomless pool. Sam abseiled through the waterfall while Jeff and I both found some fun jumps. Beyond were several more nice jumps. A few downclimbs at the end and we were at the exit tributary. Again a relatively straightforward exit back to the highway and cars.

We then drove on through Payson, making a lunch stop in at Tonto Natural Bridge State Park. I'm never one to have to pay to go to enjoy a natural area, but we paid our $5 and checked out what may be the largest natural travertine bridge. The whole state park infrastructure (picnic tables, grass, toilets, parking lot) sits on a great big plug of travertine spanning the valley. Why here, I don't know, it does not seem obvious at the first geologic glance. This travertine then had an enormous cave passage carved through it by Pine Creek. The resulting natural bridge is 183ft high, 150ft at its widest and over 400ft long. We hiked down to eat our lunch in the cool shade of the cave, then continued walking through it and back to the car.

We drove on for a descent of a West Clear Creek Canyon, Bear or Sundance, but arrived to find the whole area in a weekend long managed fire zone. Out of luck we drove to the nearby town for supplies and had a leisurely afternoon hanging out near the start of Horsetank Wash, where we were planning on canyoning the next day.