By Friday morning, I thought I had my weekend all figured out. I was going to spend Saturday up in the Estrellas climbing Quartz Peak and Sunday somewhere with water. It sounded like a good plan to me... except that I knew that Pierre and Evelyn and another of their friends were going up to the Grand Canyon to hike rim to rim to rim. Even though they were planning on doing it over two days, not all in one go, it still sounded like an incredible weekend. All would have been fine if Pierre hadn't invited me to go. Even though they only had camping permits for three, I could join them for the majority of the hike and just do the last leg by myself. Hm... Friday afternoon at 5 p.m. wasn't the best time to plan a rim-rim-rim, but it certainly had me thinking. I wrestled with the idea for a long time, but finally decided that maybe it was best to just stick with my original plan. My weekend would be fun enough, and the Grand Canyon wasn't going anywhere.
So, Saturday morning I woke up at 6, excited about the day ahead of me. I had just put a long week behind me, and I wasn't meeting anyone out at the Estrellas, so I figured that I could sleep in for a little bit. Mistake #1. I slept till 8, got up, had a good leisurely breakfast, loaded my bike in the Jeep, and didn't get out of Tempe until it was almost 10 o'clock. The temperature wasn't much over 70 though, so I wasn't worried. It was a long drive out to the Estrellas, and by the time I got out to the mountains, the temperatures had increased about 10 degrees. I had never been on the west side of the mountains, and the diversity of Arizona really showed at this point. I drove through posh, rich subdivisions and kept on driving until I was in the scene of a wild west movie. Coyotes, tumbleweeds, and dilapidated houses became the norm, and though I could see Quartz Peak clearly ahead of me, the final 9 miles that were supposed to take me to the mountain didn't look like a road, dirt or otherwise. I don't mind dirt roads, but the one that my scribbled notes directed me to didn't appear to really qualify as a road. The two sandy ruts down the middle of someone's field didn't look too inviting, and I decided that I didn't need to mess with the inhabitants, particularily ones that carried shotguns. I turned the car around and figured that I could at least salvage some of my plans by getting some mountain biking in at the Estrella Regional Park. Again, my notes on the back of a post-it note weren't the greatest, and I found the main entrance to the park before I found the competitive track, paying for the mistake with a $6 entrance fee. I figured that I'd take some turns around the trails in the park and then cut across the little bit of desert to the competitive track, hopefully looking at a 20 mile day. Unfortunately, by 11, the temperatures were hovering around 90 and as I rolled
up to the trailhead, I was greeted with sand, rocks, and an entire landscape of DEAD. It was a little bit depressing after our green spring, but I headed out anyways, eager to give my new front tire a chance to prove its worth. The tire did great across sandy washes and up rocky inclines, but both Fish and I were completely bored. The trail was rocky, but not technical and the scenery was less than inspiring. It was then and there that I realized the importance of friends, goals, and beautiful surroundings. With any one of the three, I could have squeezed some fun out of the dry desert, but lacking them I also lacked motivation. I stopped under a mesquite tree for a bit of respite from the hot sun and let out a sigh in my boredom. Almost on cue b
ut quite unexpectedly, Fish sighed back at me. When your bike sighs at you when you are several miles from anywhere and without a spare tube, you know that it's not your day. His back tire bore about 5 different thorns and I didn't have enough patches to repair it, so I resigned myself to walking back to the Jeep. I tried to find some sort of beauty in the desert, to find some reason to enjoy the hike back, but I really couldn't. I dubbed the area death valley on my long walk back. The only green along the trail consisted of a few creosote bushes. The ground in the washes was cracked in the dry heat, and the blooms on the hedgehog cacti had dried up before they could fully open. Even a saguaro along the trail had given up hope and lay crumpled on the desert floor. Everything that had been in full glory just a month ago had turned into shriveled, colorless, crunchy stalks that were gradually remorphing into the dust from which they had formed. Buzzards circled overhead, only confirming my feelings. I returned to the Jeep a few hours later wishing that I had followed my instincts on Friday and had gone to the Grand Canyon instead. I ended my day at REI stocking up on my semiannual ration of Slime tubes and also picked up a book that will probably become my bible this summer: Day Trips with a Splash, Swimming Holes of the Southwest. After a day in the heat of the valley, I spent the evening cleaning my bike, changing tubes, and drooling at the waterfalls and rapids that adorned the pages of the magnificent book. 
If Saturday was my purgatory, then Sunday was heaven. With the new book as our guide, Hannah and I took a trip up Hwy 87 to Gisela, a small ranching community smack dab in the middle of nowhere. After winding around a dirt road for a little bit, we came to a ranch and a trail that pointed us towards a swimming hole on Tonto Creek. After about a mile on a dirt track and trail, we reached the creek: deep and full of clear, cold water. The initial swimming hole by the gauging station was beautiful in itself, but we hadn't even begun. A short distance upstream we reached the Tonto Narrows where the creek constricts into rapids and deep pools bordered by smooth granite cliffs and boulders. The place was incredible, and we shared the narrows with only one other group. Of course, we weren't satisfied with just sitting around on the rocks sunning ourselves all day, so we headed upstream to see what else we could find. Similar to my other favorites, Havasu and Fossil Creek, each bend in the stream provided a new surprise, be it a tall jumping cliff, a boulder field, rapids, deep green pools, or a perfect sandy be
ach to camp on. Both Hannah and I were in awe of our new find, and we happily bounded along for about a mile, bushwacking up some areas, standing on tall cliffs above the water, and wading through the creek in other places. We could have explored the entire canyon, but since we are definitely coming back to the area for some backpacking fun this summer when the temperatures in Phoenix drive us out of the Valley, we had to save some of it for later exploration. After remaining relatively calm most of the trip upstream, I could not contain myself as we turned around. Despite the cold, I plopped down in one of the many gushing rapids and enjoyed the
best waterslide I've been in since Beaver Falls at Havasu. The water is probably the result of snowmelt further up the Rim and it was freezing, but I didn't mind too much once I got used to its refreshing temperatures, and I spent the entire hike back jumping off the rocks, sliding through the rapids, and testing the depth of pools for future diving reference. Rather than bushwacking up and over one particularily spiny section, we opted to swim, attempting to keep our bags above our heads. We had limited success, and let me just say it's a weird feeling to be diving to the bottom of a deep pool for your camera and not be worried about it (thanks Dad for the camera and Pentax for making such a tough machine!). By the time we got back to the Narrows, we couldn't stop smiling, and we met one other group that were enjoying the spot. They confirmed that not too many people visited the area, and those that did weren't apt to explore too deep into the canyon. Tonto Creek is definitely on my top ten list of favorite places in AZ, and I'd say it's probably vying for a podium spot.An added bonus to the place is that even though we spent the majority of the day hiking and splashing and having a great time, we still got back to Tempe by 4. The fact that it's only an hour and twenty minutes away makes it even sweeter. Since I was full of adrenaline and Fish was looking for redemption, I headed out for a short, hard evening ride around Tempe. In a true Arizona classic, I rode into the sunset along Tempe Town Lake admiring the beauty of my surroundings and a large flock of swallows that were dipping and diving along the water's edge eating... gnats! Millions of the buggers. In one breath, I must have swallowed at least a dozen and lodged another half dozen in each eyeball with a few more up the nose just for good measure. I tried not to breathe as I attempted to pedal out of the swarm, the bugs pelting me like rain at 25 miles an hour. Eventually, though, I did ride up and out of the bugs and had an enjoyable remainder of the ride past Priest, down the south side of the lake past the Center for the Arts, and then back home as the sun's light completely faded and my weekend of heaven and hell came to an end.
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