Aravaipa Canyon, AZ
September 13-15, 2008
Participants
Dave O'Brien
Rick Greenberg
Colin Dundas
Joe Spitale
Ingrid Daubar Spitale
Description
Aravaipa Canyon is about 2 hours northeast of Tucson. It's very scenic and it contains one of the last free-flowing rivers in Arizona, so it's a hot-spot for birds and other wildlife. As such, it's a protected area and permits are only issued for up to 30-50 people per day. I think we only saw 8 other people on the whole trip, though, and 4 of them were just day hikers. There's no maintained trail, so a lot of the hiking is along the riverbank or through the river itself, and because of that it is a bit slow-going. We hiked about 5 miles in from the west entrance and set up camp for both nights near Horse Camp Canyon, and went further up the main Canyon and into some side canyons on the middle day. There was a full moon during the hike, which made for great lighting at night.
Pictures from my last hike in fall 2007 are here.
The official BLM web page for Aravaipa Canyon, with info and an online permit request form, is here. Further information, including free topo maps of the Canyon, can be found here.
Aerial Photos
We went flying in a small plane with Rick the weekend before the hike, and took some pictures of the Canyon from the air.
My Photos
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Colin, Joe, Ingrid, and Rick at the trailhead |
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After a short hike from the trailhead, we're at the river and follow it for most of the rest of the hike |
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One of the many pictures of frogs I took |
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Rest stop at Hell's Half Acre Canyon |
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The tree has almost reached the top of its little canyon! |
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There's a lot of debris around, I believe from a major flood in July 2006 |
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Horse Camp Canyon entering from the left. We ended up backtracking from here a bit to get a good campsite. |
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Our campsite, complete with seating and a fire pit! |
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Ingrid gathering some wood for a fire. Note all of the flood debris piled against the trees. |
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Rick taking a nap |
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My spot |
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Getting ready on the morning of Day 2 |
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Looking back to the west |
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Horse Camp Canyon, which we took some time to explore. The following pictures are all from Horse Camp Canyon
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Interesting volcanic rock with long, thin crystals in it, which was fairly common in the Canyon |
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Looking back out from Horse Camp Canyon to the main Canyon |
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Yet another frog |
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Note all of the streaks of water from where it's seeping out of the rock |
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Pondering all of the life in the puddles |
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A frog that's still a little tadpole-like |
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A tadpole that's almost a frog |
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Many of the boulders had frogs hiding in the little pits
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Back to the main Canyon. From here we head further towards the east. |
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Blue Heron. We saw as many as 3 at once on the hike. Last year, we only saw one.
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Blue Heron footprints |
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Small natural arch |
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Neat erosional patterns in the rock. This is actually about a half mile or more beyond Hell Hole, our planned destination, because we overshot it. After a while, we turned back and found it.
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Another Blue Heron sighting |
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Hell Hole Canyon, a very narrow and winding side canyon that we unfortunately only had a little time to explore
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Heading back to camp
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Some 15" exposures I took near our campsite with full moon illumination
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Heading back to the trailhead on the morning of Day 3
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Big dragonfly |
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Weird intrusion, or possible hydrothermal alteration?
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