Walnut Canyon

Sit back and let me tell you the story of how four intrepid explorers managed to conquer all the trails in Walnut Canyon National Monument in the course of one afternoon. Jacqueline and I were staying in Cornville with her Aunt Kris and her dad was down to join us also. We drove up to Walnut Canyon for the day for something to do. We did not know that we would be accomplishing an impressive feat. We toured the visitor center when arriving and visited the facilities. Then we were off on our journey on the Island Trail. Our first obstacle was 185 feet of downhill over well groomed trails. There were details in the visitor center of a big rockfall, but that was long since past. After that we went in a counter-clockwise direction along a loop. This lead us to many ruins built right into the cliffs.

 As we looked out over the valley, we saw many more ruins in cliffs high above with very difficult access. Who could imagine what life was like in this part of the world to have to live in such an environment? I guess they chose it because of the water access. Unfortunately, there was no water access left because of the dam on Lake Mary upstream. Oops. We continued around our "island" with many ruins and other intrepid explorers. Soon we made the whole loop and were back to the climb up the stairs. Without problems our group made the climb slowly and surely. When we reached the top, I wanted to hike the trail to the ruins on the rim. 

Jacqueline wanted to make the trek to the bathroom once again. So we split our party where when thinking about it, I am the only one who actually completed all the trails. Hmm, because everyone else met me on the shorter loop at the ruins after a bathroom visit. With only about an hour spent (okay it wasn't that intrepid of us), we had finished all the trails in Walnut Canyon and were off to the Brewery for lunch in Flagstaff.