Hiking in the West Clear Creek Wilderness

Yesterday my dad, Uncle Jack, Zach, and I ventured into the West Clear Creek Wilderness of the Coconino National Forest northwest of Payson.  Uncle Jack had scouted the area a few weeks before and thought he'd found a good location to get into the canyon and down to West Clear Creek.  We took three tries at it but were unable to reach the creek, which looked awesome.  Despite getting soaked in rain at the end, we had a great time, and plan to try it again soon to reach that elusive creek and its swimming holes.

Venturing forth from the car












These next shots were taken from our starting off point.  This would be an awesome camping spot...

           

         

These next shots and video were taken about halfway down the first side canyon we tried unsuccessfully to get down.  It was the most fun climbing.

        

I snapped this photo of my dad on our second attempt, in a second canyon.  You can see how steep and difficult the ground was.  We had to use the trees to climb up and down.  This hike about did my dad in.

On our third attempt, we followed a much more gradually sloping canyon down and saw some pretty neat things, including a bat.