Great Kayak Trip!

When we were exploring Winslow, Arizona, we picked up a Chamber of Commerce brochure of things to see and do in their small town.  When we read about McHood Park, and that you could canoe to Clear Creek Canyon we had to try it out.  After two days of rain storms, we were blessed with beautiful weather on the day we were leaving.  So we parked the motorhome at the Walmart parking lot in Winslow, and drove to McHood Park, 5 miles southeast of town.  By the time we got our Sea Eagle kayak inflated, we were on the water at 9:45 a.m.

From the boat ramp, we paddled upstream through the reservoir and under the bridge.  We loved the rock walls, but we really hated the graffiti.  It put such a damper on the beginning of the trip! 

But we were glad that we continued, because the view kept getting better as we rowed further away from the civilization that doesn't appreciate this little gem of a creek.

Besides a couple fishermen at the reservoir, we didn't see another person on the water all morning.  The rock walls turned from tan to chocolate brown and got taller and closer together.  We love kayaking into a canyon!

Along the way we were entertained by the aerobatics of the canyon swallows dipping and diving in the air for insects.  The little black dots in the sky are just a few of hundreds of swallows we saw today.  We also watched them dropping down to creek level to get a mouth full of water.  Then they flew into a crack in the canyon walls for dry dirt.  It looked like they were making mud for some spring remodeling of their nests.

The swallow nests were lined up in little communities under the overhangs along the canyon walls.

Clear water, beautiful canyon walls, blue skies--it was a great day for getting the kayak in the water!  We really like our little inflatable Sea Eagle kayak!

Denisa always sits in the front, while Mark is the rear oarsman in charge of navigation.  It only took Denisa 9 tries to get this picture of Mark in the back of the boat.  The other 8 included the top of Denisa's head, or did not include Mark's head.  We don't know if Mark is smiling because he is having a good time, or laughing at Denisa's pitiful attempts at photography.

Our next visitor in the canyon was a great horned owl that swooped right over our heads and landed high on the canyon wall beside us.  He totally surprised us, so we didn't have the camera ready for his flight.

This is a picture of the entire canyon wall, so you can see that the picture above was zoomed in as far as a camera phone can go.  But then Mark spotted the owl's mate in the tiny triangle-shaped cubby in the far left side of the canyon wall.




Again, not a great close-up, but the best we could do with the camera equipment in the boat.  We really enjoyed watching the pair of owls!

The canyon walls continued to get taller as the distance between them got narrower.  It was a beautiful combination to witness from a boat.





We didn't know much about this creek or how far upstream we could paddle.  There were several times that we got to really narrow places that only had a few inches of water in them.  But we are usually surprised at how little water it takes to float our inflatable kayak, and Denisa is always surprised at how well Mark can navigate us through tiny spots.

It was in that shallow water that we spotted this crayfish hiding out.  The water was crystal clear, and we also saw lots of fish.

We made it through a couple more very narrow openings, but we finally just ran out of water.  We were about 4 miles from where we put the boat in at the ramp, and it was time to turn around and float back.

It was also a good time to get out and stretch our legs.  The inflatable seats in the kayak are very comfortable.  But by this time we had been paddling for almost two hours, and it felt good to stand up.  We had been paddling against the current and some wind, but we weren't exactly breaking any speed boat records this morning.









So we would turn the boat around and head back home through this beautiful canyon.

Denisa likes pictures that include the tip of the kayak.  It gives a little sense of scale, and reminds us that we were really here.  This wasn't some postcard shot--this is what we were seeing today.


As we got closer to our car, the wind picked up and the clouds rolled in.  It looks like there could be some more rain in the afternoon forecast for Clear Creek, and we were hoping to get off the water before it stormed.  Mark thought he would never hear Denisa say, "I'll be glad when we see the graffiti rocks" but she knew that would mean they were almost back to the car.

We were escorted back to the reservoir by a flock of water birds hanging out by the bridge.  They would let us get pretty close before they mustered up all their strength to take off in flight.  We love the way they commence to walking on the water before they get airborne.

We were back in the car with the boat deflated and packed up by 1:00, and we didn't even get rained on!  It had been a great little stop-over in Winslow on our way to our next destination.  The Clear Creek Canyon was just another one of His wonders that we love to find!