Mary Ann and I went to Aravaipa Canyon on April 6. It’s a beautiful spot, and we try to go every year. You can enter the canyon on the east side or the west side. Permits are required to get into the canyon, and they limit it to 20 people per day, at each entry point. This year we went to the east side, which is a longer drive. We left Monday night after Mary Ann got off work, and stayed at the Quality Inn & Suites in Safford. It’s about a 3 hour drive to Safford. The next morning we drove to the the Aravaipa Canyon trailhead, which is about a 1.5 hour drive from the hotel.
The canyon has steep walls, and Aravaipa Creek runs through it. The trail through the canyon requires hiking in the water, about 25% of the time. This year, I used some cheap water shoes, and wore them inside my Teva sandals. It worked the best of all my trips to the canyon.
We saw a lot more birds than I was able to photograph. A highlight was a White-faced Ibis and a Common Blackhawk flying low, down the canyon, as if the hawk was in pursuit of the Ibis. I was surprised to see a White-faced Ibis in the canyon, but I looked on ebird.org, and others have also reported it.
We hiked up to a side canyon called ‘Hell Hole Canyon’ (what a name!). Our hiking distance to Hell Hole Canyon, as the crow flies, was about 2.4 miles, one way (out of a total of 11 miles from the east trailhead to the west). I have an application on my phone that tracks our hike using GPS, and it shows that we hiked a total of about 7.1 miles. Crisscrossing the stream, and side trips, added a lot more distance.
Back in Safford, we tried Casa Mañana for dinner, but there was a 40 minute wait. So we went to Mechy’s Mexican Food. It wasn’t very good. On our last trip (2019), the Quality Inn had a nice breakfast. This year, due to Covid, they closed the breakfast eating area, and we got reconstituted eggs and sausage or pancakes. Not great, but OK.
As usual, we had a great time in the canyon. Mary Ann says that it’s her “favorite place in the galaxy”. I guess she has other favorite places in other galaxies. The next morning we went to the Old Safford Bridge in the Gila Box National Conservation Area, and also to Mt. Graham. That will be the topic of my next post.
