Sunday afternoon and Monday were beautiful days. The weekend storm dropped a lot of rain on us but snow in the surrounding mountains (over a foot in the mountains to the north around Flagstaff). This photo is looking south at the Mingus Mountains that collected a light coating of snow.

On Monday the temperature reached 70 degrees so in the morning we drove up a rough dirt road to a trail head into the Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Area. It turns out that the area was designated a wilderness in 1922 and was the first one in Arizona. There are dozens of other entries into the wilderness but the most used and reported are those easily accessible from either Sedona or Prescott where most of the surrounding population resides. Because of the length and roughness of the access road from Cottonwood we were surprised to see four vehicles parked at the trail head (one being a small Honda with Maine license plates).

The only drawback to this trail head is that hikers immediately drop several hundred feet into the mouth of the Sycamore Canyon (not a problem when we are fresh at the beginning of a hike but necessary to keep in mind for the return trip).

Spring is just arriving and the shrubs and trees are just beginning to sprout leaves (this has happened since we arrived 12 days ago). It should be really beautiful in the next few weeks.

Once at the bottom of the canyon the trail is gentle and follows Sycamore Creek. 

Abby enjoyed chasing sticks in the water just as she does in the Henry's Fork.

We didn't see this on the hike into the canyon but on our way out we noticed an alcove high on the cliff. It looked to the naked eye like there is a portion of an ancient adobe wall on the left which is common for the area. Most of these structures were used for storage of corn/beans/squash grown in the valley below. The photo below is the max zoom on Rick's camera (12 X) - so what do you think? Click on the image to view it larger.

All totaled we didn't hike more than 2.5 miles but we certainly enjoyed the walk. We exited the canyon around 1:00 before the day's max temperature was reached. We then just goofed off driving around looking at some of the houses that are for sale.

Today we will leave Abby in the trailer and go have lunch in Old Town Cottonwood - then we plan to just walk around and visit the many art and specialty shops. We might even enter one of the many wine tasting rooms on Main Street. Who knows?