Arizona 2011
by Mike Thompson, 1/15/2012
NOTE: This story appeared in "Canews", the newsletter of the Paddle Trails Canoe Club, in February, 2012.
Hungry for sunshine, Jane and I flew to Arizona the day after Christmas for some Class 0 flatwater canoeing on the Salt River reservoirs just east of Phoenix. We did not "rough it" in any way, shape, or form, spending the nights in a hotel in Mesa. Our non-punishing daily routine: up at 7:30 AM (when a strange, brilliant, orange orb appeared outside our window), grab coffee and buy sandwiches for lunch, drive east about 50 miles into the Superstition Mountains to the lake du jour (Canyon Lake, Apache Lake, or Saguaro Lake), paddle for two or three hours, drive back to the hotel, perform hot tub therapy, get dinner somewhere close by, then crash in a big, comfy bed.
The weather was ideal, even by Arizona standards. There was frost on our car early the first morning, but it warms up there quickly as soon as the sun rises. Midday temps were in the upper 60's and low 70's, with nary a cloud in the sky and only a very light mid-afternoon breeze. It felt quite strange to be able to look up and see the sun tracking across the sky every minute of every day. There was a beautiful orange/turquoise/lavender sunset at 5:30 each night, chased by a crescent moon.
I used to picture Arizona as a big, flat expanse of dirt and cactus with a famous canyon on one end. Wrong! There's flat country right around Phoenix, but now I'll remember Arizona as canyons, cliffs, and cactus. It's a very mountainous place, it's just that their mountains don't have trees or glaciers on them. The map shows a couple 10,000 foot peaks just across the border in New Mexico, so these aren't just wimpy little hills either. The place looks like a rock climber's paradise, with lots of sheer and even overhung cliffs, big vertical cracks, and skinny rock spires poking straight up out of the water into the blue sky. The Salt River watershed we were paddling in is a maze of canyons. Easy to imagine the Apache leading Crook's soldiers on wild goose chases up in that country.
We saw many of the same water birds that you see around here: blue heron, cormorants, and coots. Weird to come across a heron sunning itself next to a big saguaro cactus.
We rented our boat from a nice guy named Ted, who owns Salt River Canoe. He's got all the gear: canoes/kayaks/sit-on-tops (rental-grade, roto-molded plastic - no glass boats), paddles, PFDs, straps, etc. We rented a 16' Old Town that's a bit beamier than our Wenonah Escapade, but was in good shape and served quite well. A week's rental was $140 bucks, which is pretty hard to complain about.
Kowabungularly Yours,
Mike & Jane