Chevelon Canyon Lake SUP Camp

 

I stared in disgust at my phone screen. I was thinking, "It can't be", but it sure could be, and in fact was. I reloaded the page from the National Weather Service website. I double checked. I triple checked. Yes, the forecast was definitely for Prescott. Yes, Prescott Arizona. No, not Prescott Arkansas, a mistake I'd made in the past. Well, crud. The forecast was calling for temps in the low 90s during the day, and lows in the upper 60s to low 70s at night. Definitely not camping weather for this camper.

We'd been invited by our good friends, John and Jeanie Touchstone, to share a campsite for this last weekend. We'd planned to do some mountain biking, some paddling and just spend some time catching up with some of our favorite peeps. What with the Corona virus, a crazy wildfire season, some severe winds, and unseasonable weather, we'd had several trips with them cancelled. It was looking like this trip wasn't going to happen either.

 Jeanie and I had been exchanging messages throughout the week in hopes that the forecast would change and maybe a front would move in. No dice. I was just about to send out the dreaded "Dear John/Jeanie" text when I received a text from Jeanie. They were thinking along the same lines, so we decided to cancel and live to fight another day.

Bianca and I still wanted to get out of town for the weekend, but we knew we'd need to get a couple thousand feet higher in elevation and we wanted to be near water, and we didn't want to be anywhere near people. Yeah, and I also wanted the tooth fairy to put a million bucks into my bank account. We'd need to plan this out and pull it off in two days. I dug deep into my bag of trips.

I knew that I wanted to be up on the Mogollon Rim, as the altitude up there made it likely that we'd have much more favorable temperatures. Most of the Rim lakes up there are a zoo every weekend, much less on a holiday weekend with record high temperatures. I planned to stay away from those lakes, no matter what. My research on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest website had indicated that Chevelon Canyon Lake was the least accessible lake on the Rim. There was no road access to the lake, and the closest parking was a mile away, up a steep "trail" from the lake. Hmmm, least accessible sounds good to me. So, you're saying it's accessible? 

I didn't relish the idea of hauling our not insubstantial amount of gear down a mile long steep trail, that was literally a surface of tennis ball to baseball size rocks. At the conclusion of the trip, we'd have to haul it all out. I figured, however, that if we were willing to do it, most folks wouldn't be. 

I pitched the idea to Bianca with bated breath. I'm always worried that some of my more "out there" ideas are going to just push her a bit too far. At this point I should just stop worrying because she has just as much of a sense of adventure as I do, plus she never lets a good mental or physical effort dissuade her from anything. She's as mentally and physically tough as anyone I've ever met. She was on board with the plan and now I just had to finalize the plan.

We'd drive up on Friday after work and find some place to disperse camp near the lake. We'd wake up and finish off the short drive to the lake. We'd schlep all of our gear down to the lake in how ever many trips it took. We'd inflate the boards, load up our gear and get underway. We'd explore the lake and find a nice spot to set up camp. The next morning, we planned on doing a bit of hiking and also a bit more paddling, before we loaded our gear for the outbound paddle.

The lake is not super big, but feels big, as it kind of snakes and winds it's way through the Canyon. It's not unlike many other lakes and reservoirs in Arizona, such as CC Cragin Reservoir, that almost feel like a wide river. We knew that we would not be paddling all day, but maybe just a couple of hours. This gave us the luxury of being able to take our time a bit on Saturday morning.

Friday soon rolled around and as soon as the work day ended, we loaded up and got on the road. We'd once again be headed into an unknown- to- us area and trying to find a dispersed camping spot, in the dark no less. As it turned out, and was expected, we were soon joined on the beeline highway by many many thousands of our closest friends. It was like a funeral procession up the highway. I can only imagine what Payson/Flagstaff/Prescott residents must think when the hordes ascend upon them each weekend. I guess it's probably how we feel when the hordes descend upon us in the winter. I digress.

Soon enough progress ground to a halt. We were in a major traffic jam. Well crud! The fire that happened earlier in the summer, the Bush fire I believe, had actually melted/burned up miles upon miles of the wooden posts and metal structure that make up the guardrails. The Dept of Transportation was in the midst of replacing the guardrails, thus one lane was closed. Those guardrails are definitely needed as there are some steep drop-offs along that highway.

I was really beginning to regret the large amount of fluids I had consumed that afternoon. I frantically searched the vehicle for any container. Thankfully, I happened upon a large rimmed Monster can. The relief was real. 

After an extra hour of travel, we steamed in to Payson. The 1st gas station we encountered was buried in a sea of humanity. Folks were waiting 3 and 4 vehicles deep at every pump. Thousands of campers, trailers loaded with ATVs, etc were all over the place. It was quite the scene. I'm sure that local business owners were thrilled at the extra business. I can only imagine how tough it was for them during the stay at home orders.

We bypassed the area and pulled into Safeway for a few last minute essentials. The line at the lady's room in Safeway was about 12 deep. After 20 minutes or so we were back on the road, headed East on the 260.

Within an hour, we made the turn onto Rim road. The amount of traffic was staggering. We were headed to the farthest lake out there, so as we progressed, traffic thinned. We went down Forest Road 169, and began the search for a spot. 

Within 15 mins or so, we found a beautiful spot that was just 15 minutes from the lake. We had camp set up within about 10 minutes. The temperature was beautiful. We crashed shortly thereafter. 

As the clock struck 7:00 AM, I awoke. It was time to get the morning started. I got the Jetboil fired up. Coffee is always the 2nd order of business! We set up the chairs and just enjoyed coffee, breakfast and the breeze blowing through the pines. A faint whiff of campfire was in the air, along with the smells of Ponderosa Pine, Juniper, and various other trees in the area. It was a pleasant morning. Many different species of birds were out birding.

I knew that my sister and brother in law were driving up that morning from Chandler and were going to be trying to find a place to park their camper for a few days. There was just a faint hint of a signal, but I texted Codie and suggested that they head our way and take over the site that we currently occupied. They jumped on the chance, as they had known that trying to find a spot would be tough. 

We went about getting our gear prepped for our upcoming departure. Within an hour or so they showed up and got their rig set up. We had a really nice visit with them for a while, before we decided to get going. 

After a 25 minute drive, we approached Chevelon Lake Campground, which is where you park to hike down the trail to the lake. My plans for a quiet weekend seemed to take a hit as I had never seen so many ATVs and dune buggies around. One couldn't think straight what with all of the noise and dust flying around. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. We loaded up with gear, and began the pilgrimage down to the lake. The loads we carried would have had any sherpa I've ever seen wince in pain! Actually, they probably would have looked at us and said, "Is that all you can carry"? 

We were pretty heavily loaded down so as not to make too many trips. The entire trail is fairly steep and extremely rocky. There were more than a few folks attempting the trek with just sandals on their feet and very little water. Many of them turned around and went back. 

The first glimpse of the lake, right in the middle of the shot. There were a few folks down there on ATVs. One of them indicated that there was a really rough trail that they were able to get in there on. There were a few folks fishing from shore as the lake is reputed to be quite the trout fishery. We didn't see a soul on the lake.

Just one more pump!! Bianca doing yeoman work in inflating the rigs. I was hauling all of the gear down to the "beach" area in order to launch, whilst she inflated the rigs. There is no beach at Chevelon. There are huge, flat, slabs of rock on the shore. Some folks were laying on them and using them as a platform to get into the lake for some swimming. It was kind of a busy, chaotic area. Many folks who had walked all that way down the trail for a day at the beach were very disappointed and just turned around to hike back out. I'll bet we saw 50-75 people do that each time we were in the launch area.

We loaded up the rigs and got ready to launch. I was stoked to get those first few paddle strokes in, and also to get the chaos of the launch area into my rear view mirror. Bianca diddled around with a few more last minute adjustments and then we got asea.

The scenery was spectacular! It was as beautiful, if not more so, than any other body of water I'd been on in Arizona, save for the Colorado River. It was so quiet, as we literally had the place to ourselves. There appeared to be trout jumping from the water, and any number of species of birds, waterfowl, etc flying around.

After an hour or two of steady paddling, we started to near the Eastern end of the lake. I saw an area that looked like it had potential as a camping spot. It was about 3:00 PM or so. I quickly beached my rig and scoped out the site. Oh yes, thank you, this will do!

The trail up to our campsite! There's a lot of privacy, though there wasn't anyone else anywhere near us!

Getting camp set up. Such a beautiful spot. Hard to beat lake side camping.

What a massive firepit. Tons of wood around. We'd checked the Apache Sitgreaves website ahead of time to see if there were any fire restrictions. Thankfully, they'd been lifted on July 23rd. We planned on a nice fire later that evening.

The beach in front of our campsite. It was so peaceful.

After camp was set up, we decided to get out on the lake and do some swimming. The water was a tad on the chilly side and it felt wonderful. We were also running low on water, so I got out the Katadyn and we made a few liters. It was delicious water. After a while, the hunger pangs were kicking in and we returned to camp.

The jetboil in action, getting some water boiled to hydrate our dehydrated meals. Red and black beans with rice, and smoked turkey sausage was on the menu. It was killer! 

As the last vestiges of daylight slowly ebbed away, we got the fire going. She was a real beaut!

We sat and enjoyed the fire for a couple of hours. With absolutely zero human light or noise pollution, it felt like a true wilderness experience. Birds, bugs, and bullfrogs all made their respective noises and it was quite the show. The sky was as brilliant as I've seen in a while, each constellation as bright, vivid, and crisp as the next. When you live in the suburbs, you tend to forget about these kinds of experiences. Personally, I seek them out as often as I can.

As the fire ebbed away to a few stubborn, holdout embers, our energy also reached it's nadir for the day. We doused the embers with a good bit of water and retired. Sleep came hard. Unfortunately, due to our early bed time, I found myself wide awake at 2:30. Thankfully, I was eventually able to get back to sleep.

The next morning we awoke to a beautiful day. We made coffee, had some oatmeal and relaxed for a while. After breakfast, we decided to go on a brief hike, just to explore the area.

Don't ask me where we got these gems. About the best that I can say about them is that they got the job done!

We decided to take a spin around and explore more of the area on the boards, before we loaded them up for the trip back. They're so much more fun with no gear loaded on them.

Late in the morning, we decided to get the boards loaded and start to make our way back. We didn't know what delights would await us on the highway, but were expecting the worst.

I couldn't really tell you how much weight I was carrying on the board, besides my sculpted 200 lb frame. When the cooler is full, especially when we bring a lot of beer, it's super heavy. If we're packing in a lot of water, it's an even heavier load. I'd say I'm carrying anywhere in the neighborhood of 30+ additional pounds at times. The board on occasion will feel a tad sluggish, especially in rougher seas,  but it's not so heavy that you can't move along at a good clip and have fun.

We eventually worked our way back close to the launching area. It was a bummer that the trip was nearly over, and an even bigger bummer that we now had to haul all of our stuff up that long trail.

If you look closely enough, above, you can see folks on the shore. That is the launching area and the only area on the lake where you can really access the lake. The rest of the lake, save for a few areas near where we camped, is cliff bound.

The long, diagonal line that goes upward from right to left, is the trail up out of the canyon. After we landed, we began the process of deflating our boards and packing them into the "backpack" style bags that they come in. We had stashed them near the launching area. Thankfully nobody messed with them. Once we had that task complete, we began the long, laborious slog out of there.

On the drive out of there, we stopped and had lunch with my sister and brother in law and had a great visit with them once again. Thankfully, the drive home was quick and uneventful. We'll see what the next trip brings! We're already looking forward to it.