Kinder Creek

My parents had a hiking trip planned for this weekend just the two of them, and when I found out about it I totally invited myself along. I realize I'm grown, and married, and out of the house, but I keep telling them they'll just never get rid of me.

The Kinder Creek trail is located about 40(ish) miles north of Payson and at this time of year is a perfect way to escape the summer heat for a day! Since Nate was out fulfilling his hunting and gathering duties for the week (wild turkey for dinner tonight may show up in a later post...) I brought Gunther along with me as he's more likely than Maycee to listen to me when Nate's not around to lay down the law. Gunther led most of the way and seemed to be in better shape than the rest of us

...no offense Hammick

The hike starts at the top and you make your way down the canyon. It's pretty steep and rocky at some points, but it doesn't last long, so it's not bad. The whole hike is only about 4 miles round trip.

And plus my mom had her brand new fancy-schmancy hiking shoes so there was no repeat of fossil springs all day! ...You go girl!

Once you get down to the bottom there are some really neat water holes to swim in, but it was a bit overcast and the sky was thundering all morning long, so we opted not to swim this time. And on top of that, the coolest swimming spot, complete with a sandy beach was being hogged up by some campers who set out there fishing lines equally spaced along the entire shore. Jerks.

So we continued up the the trail a bit, hiking parallel to the creek, but as soon as the dogs heard the sound of the running water, they made a beeline right for it! In fact, we couldn't get an over-heated Hammick out of the water!

Once we crossed the creek we made it to the big water spot complete with a mini "waterfall"(not sure I would even go that far, but nonetheless, pretty neat). It was so pretty and once again the dogs couldn't wait to cool down!

The 'rents 

We plopped ourselves right on top of a big flat rock and just enjoyed the afternoon relaxing, and taking in the scenery!...And laughing at the dogs, like how Gunther kept running all around and slipping on the mossy rocks, or Hammick that gets in the water and just stands there and doesn't move a muscle. They were pretty entertaining. It even started to lightly sprinkle on us, which is a much-welcomed change from the weather down in the valley these days.

After a little while, we eventually packed up and made our way back up the canyon, and (unfortunately) our way back down to the 116 degree weather. Yuck.

It was fun to pretend the weather is permanently in the 70's, at least for a day!