Saturday’s weather forecast for Heber just kept gertting worse. Call off the hike, or go for it? After agonizing all week, I checked the weather forecasts one last time on Friday. They had one saving grace: rain mostly after 11:00 AM. So I emailed everybody that the hike was on.

Not too bad when we left Fountain Hills. When we got to the Mazatzals there was a scenic mixture of sunshine and clouds. The first sprinkles fell after we left Sunflower. As we drove up into the clouds the sprinkles turned into a storm. I’d never seen such a heavy downpour in the Mazatzals, or anywhere else for that matter. The heaviest rain was along Slate Creek. Oh, what’s going to become of our hike?

By the time we got to Payson it was merely sprinkling again. Patches of blue appeared in the west, and the clouds were drifting east. So we left my car at Two Sixty Trailhead, then drove on up to the Mogollon Campground Trailhead to start the hike.

By the time we had hiked a quarter mile the sun came out. We got to enjoy a cool, sunny hike in July with no dust. Is this Arizona?

The Rim Lakes Vista Trail is paved on its west half mile. Walking east, it goes by Meadow Trailhead and a vista point before the pavement runs out, near the Military Sinkhole Vista. There we enjoyed the view and took pictures before walking on down to Two Sixty Trailhead. The Military Sinkhole Trail goes down an old road until it turns right to make its way to our stream crossing. Lots of little ups and downs.