Temporal Canyon Trail

The Arizona National Scenic Trail - affectionately referred to as the AZ Trail - is an 800+ mile continuous path from Mexico to the Utah border just north of the Grand Canyon North Rim. From the border with Mexico it travels up to Patagonia, crosses town, and heads out through Temporal Canyon. Six miles from town, on a bumpy, dusty forest service road is a parking lot and trailhead.

We believe that Temporal Canyon gets its name from Temporal Creek that flows during the rainy season. We were fortunate to be here at a time when it was flowing and providing that most enjoyable sound, the babbling stream. It also challenged us with stream crossings - 15 crossings, or 30 in and out. Actually there may be many more since there was no fix goal on our hike, we just went out as far as we wanted and then turned around and came back.

A section of the trail where we had to follow the edge of the creek.

In the trailhead parking there were two other trucks, one towing a trail which had a ramp and was empty. We speculated that the trailer carried this 4-wheeler that we met about a mile into the hike. They passed us, then came back about ten minutes later and on the third pass I took these pictures.

The ATV going through one of the creek crossings.

There were nice trees along the creek where we stopped to have our lunch. If you click to enlarge the picture you might notice the mountain peak in the upper right-hand section of the picture. Below...

is a tele-photo lens picture of the peak. Notice the trees on the left peak, marching up the hill.

Lunch view down the creek.

This was an interesting canyon with chartreuse rocks along the walls.

Buckhorn Cholla in bloom.

The reason for this picture is the chartreuse rocks near the top - guess you have to enlarge the picture to see them. 

Today's hike:

Length - 6.62 miles

Duration - 3 hours, 14 minutes (including lunch)

Elevation gain - 540 feet (56 floors on the Fitbit)