On a bright and clear day nine of us met at our northbound meeting spot, Denny’s on Bell and I-17: Darleen Lindquist, Doris Madueno, Meera D, Vijay P, Kay Fitting, Kim Gibson, Kenn Wright and his dog, Tess, Tom and Jeannie Van Lew and their dog, Sandy. We arranged car-pooling and headed up I-17.

Sycamore Canyon [photo by Chuck]

The trailhead was perched atop a mesa looking out over a wide valley of Sycamore Canyon, where Sycamore Creek runs into the Verde River. The trail immediately began its 300 foot decent to meet up with the creek. The first thing we noticed were the giant sycamores lining the banks of the creek, creating shady canopy over our heads. The next thing we noticed was the gurgling of the creek as the water cascaded over the rocks and various log jams.

The red rock walls rose higher and became steeper as we hiked into Sycamore Canyon, but the trail was fairly level. We past Summers Spring at the 1.3-mile mark, where the trail gets rougher because some of the path has been washed away. Our goal for this hike was to reach Parson’s Spring. To get there we had to crisscross the creek four times.

We knew we had reached the spring when the creek became very marshy with cattails along the banks and green marsh scum floating on the top of the water.

We did find the spring trickling out of the rocks on the left side of the creek. Then we decided to turn around and return to the area of the last creek crossing for lunch.

There were several large boulders, which many of us sat on, and after removing boots and socks, we soaked our feet in the cool water. On the way out Kenn stumbled and dropped his TalkAbout radio. He, Kim and Tess backtracked until they found it. We were back out to our cars by 2:30 and were all too soon on our way home, leaving behind the cool refreshing water and the serenity and beauty of another of Arizona’s canyons.