Hiking in the Arizona Rain Forest

Wait, what? The Arizona Rainforest?! Okay fine, there is no rainforest in Arizona, but this was the next best thing. There's a canyon just south of Flagstaff with some pretty amazing hikes. Nate has raved to me about this one, Westfork, since I moved to Arizona four years ago. Even with as much as he talked it up, it did not disappoint. The elevation is much higher than Phoenix and you're in a rock canyon with a stream so it's shaded, cooler, and very very green. I felt like I was in another world (and I truly was, compared to hot, dusty and dry Phoenix).

This was the first indication that my camera was having trouble focusing. It later stopped focusing completely and died.

We're so good at taking pictures of ourselves...

It rained the entire drive to the trail head, and for the first half of our hike. But it couldn't have been more welcome. We were largely shielded from the water while hiking because the canopy of trees was so dense.

Nate is getting so good at posing for all my picture taking.

LOOK AT THE GREEN. IT'S EVERYWHERE.

(okay, I understand this may not be as exciting to you folks in CA and WA, but for us it was better than Disneyland)

No way. Is this really Arizona in August?

One magical thing about this hike was that there were several parts of it that reminded me of other places in the world I've hiked. This part reminded me of when David and I went through the Lauterbrunnen valley in Switzerland. The weather was similar too.

I LOVE bridges in the rainforest (or any hike really). This one was up really high and you could see the stream far below. It was actually raining at this point, but Nate was so nice and let me stop and take pictures anyway.

Sometimes I hike in a skirt. It's something I picked up in Uganda, and that's probably a conversation for another day, but for now I'll just say you should try it some time. It's ultra comfortable and keeps you both cool and warm enough. If the hike is very steep or requires any degree of climbing I recommend wearing leggings or shorts underneath, but honestly it's a really great way to go.

Did I mention that this canyon is in a red rock area? So the colors are very vibrant. Bright reds, bright greens, blue sky (when the rain stopped).

Like I said, it was raining and I had my green jacket on over my camelback. so basically I was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

A large bettle. Maybe the size of a quarter? Not the biggest I've seen, but I still felt it was noteworthy.

This was absolutely gorgeous.

So you hike for about 3 miles on the trail under the trees and then the trail turns into the stream, so you walk in that. It felt great on our feet and reminded me of the Narrows in Zions National Park, with tall red rock walls on either side of us.

There was this small swamp pond next to one portion of the trail. Of course, that reminded me of the Okefenokee swamp in Georgia. I kept waiting for a gator to pop up...but thankfully there weren't any. Isn't that green amazingly bright?

This looks like a fairy tale to me.

The very first portion of the hike is through what used to be an apple orchard (and kind of still is, though I don't think anyone maintains it). The park rangers were really nice and said we could pick a bag of apples while we were there. This made Nate very happy.

Apple Picker Nate

He actually climbed a tree because all the lower apples had been picked. We took them home and he juiced them and had fresh apple juice all week.

This picture is only to prove that my camera really did die (thankfully at the end of the hike). It's of the bag of apples we picked.

So, we had a great hike at Westfork. It feels so great to get out and be in different surroundings and breathe fresh air and talk for hours with your spouse. After our hike we drove up to Flagstaff to eat at Nate's favorite restaurant "Big Foot BBQ" (which sounds fabulous). Unfortunately, the power was out on the entire block of the restaurant so we went to Nate's second favorite - a hamburger place. Where we each ate a delicious hamburger the size of our face. You'll just have to believe me on this one, since the camera was broken.