Our leader Michael wisely chose the weekend AFTER Memorial Day to avoid the crowds for this camping trip. We were looking forward to escaping the intense heat of Phoenix, although it can still be pretty warm even at the higher elevations when it’s 110° in Phoenix (our campground is located at 7345').

So in addition to the hiking offerings, we also planned on doing some kayaking to help keep cool.

We reached the town of Pine at lunchtime on Friday, and just beat the ’lunch rush’ (yes, even Pine apparently has a lunch rush!) at the Pine Deli. Once we reached the Rock Crossing Campground and scoped out campsites that were as close together as possible, we set up the tents and immediately headed to the Blue Ridge Reservoir for the first of our kayak and canoe adventures. The Reservoir is only a short 2 mile drive from the Rock Crossing campground.

Bill was the first one to venture out in his kayak, and Wendy and Karen watched a large group of kids and their leader packing up their canoes while waiting for the truck and the rest of the kayaks to arrive at the launch site. It took them longer than expected to arrive, and it turns out one of the kayaks fell off of the truck, but luckily it didn’t go over the edge, as the road down to the launch site has a steep drop-off on one side.

After dropping the boats off at the launch site, the driver then has to drive up the road to park the car out of the way in the parking lot and walk back down to the launch site.

One of the kayaks was an inflatable one, so we helped to “pump up the volume” while Michael parked the truck. Before too long, we were on the water for a perfect late afternoon of exploring.

Late afternoon was a great time to be on the reservoir, which was more like a winding river, as it offered a lot of shade to help us escape the heat even more.

We returned just in time for happy hour at the campground. The strange clicking sound of insects was our constant companion for the duration of the trip, but luckily the insects stayed in the trees and didn’t bother us.

Even the mosquitoes (or very large gnats!) that were swarming didn’t chow us or really even bother us at all. We spent most of the evening telling bear stories, due to the bear attack that occurred the day before about 20 miles away below the rim.

Saturday morning - After all of that bear talk and being so careful to put all food, beverages and lotions safely away, we awoke to find a couple of the chocolate chip bars still sitting out on the picnic table...yikes!

While the bulk of the group waited for additional Trailblazers to drive up from the valley to do the longer hike, the remaining five of us headed out on our own short hike for the day while it was still cool, venturing just to the (dry) creek bed and back.

We set the timer so that we could all get in the picture, and just as Wendy sat down on the log to join the others, the log started tipping like a see-saw!

The photo at the top of this trip report of the five of us shows the surprised look on our faces as the log did the see-saw movement ; )

Once we got to the creek bed, two of us turned around as planned, while the other three decided to go just a bit farther down the trail.

Since we passed a trail junction sign along the way that said “Rock Crossing Campground,” we decided that the three that were continuing on could simply take that side trail back to the campground, so that the two of us going back to the car wouldn’t have to wait for them (they ended up beating us back anyway, as the side trail was a short, direct route to the campground!).

Just before reaching the car, we ran into the longer hike’s crowd, and briefly chatted with them, especially those in the group that had just come up for the day.

The short hike group of five packed a quick lunch, and headed back to the reservoir for round 2 of kayaking.

This time instead of going to the right from the boat launching, we headed left, intending to reach the dam. We maneuvered our way under a rock overhang and managed to tie our kayaks to the shore enough to enjoy a quick lunch on the water. The day before was very calm, but this time out the wind had picked up quite a bit, which made for challenging paddling.

We found ourselves getting blown over to the shore, and some small waves were starting to come over the sides of the kayak.

We did get a good workout paddling hard, still enjoying ourselves, but not sure we would have enough energy to go all of the way to the dam and back. So instead we headed back to the boat launch, and found a couple of pretty resting points along the way.

Back at the campground, we relaxed in our camp chairs and keep scooting them over to remain in the shady spots that inched away from us. We ended the day with a fantastic potluck dinner, joined by some of the day hike folks.

Thirteen hikers (campers and day hikers) did the late hike. We all started from "TH" and stayed on the Arizona Trail until creek bottom at "CB". Having previously hiked up and down the hill to the south (trip report, August 21, 2010), Bill looked for volunteers to join him heading east down the dry creek.

Chuck, Arturo, and Karen joined Bill. Mike and the others headed south up the hill.

After we passed “turtle rock”, Karen chose to head back. We passed many campsites ... most likely used by boaters when the reservoir had higher water levels. The grasses were greener and the creek got muddier as we got closed in the ending fingers of the reservoirs. With boaters in site at "WS" we had lunch before heading back.

Bill did a little solo bushwhacking rejoining the trail between "T1" and "T2" meeting up with Mike and a few others.

Nicole, Anikó and Scott joined Bill for a short half-mile challenge down the canyon wall east of the campsite into the wash and back up before the potluck.

Thanks to Michael Humphrey for organizing and leading the trip!