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Over this last weekend a friend and I had a great 3 day/2 night backpacking trip into Chevlon canyon, located in the tall pines of the Mollogon Rim. When we arrived at the Woods Canyon Lake store (the 1st lake on the top of the rim, coming in from Payson), we were informed that they had about 6 inches of snowfall the night before, so we were expecting some cold weather. The hike in was beautiful with temperatures ranging from 60-70 degrees. With the sun going down we were only able to get in about 2 miles from the main campground located at the top of the canyon.

The steep climb down along an old road had to have a 6-8 degree downgrade, which was fun going in, but not at all hiking out and really took a toll on our depleted energy and water reserves.About 1 mile down the old road you will find Chevlon Canyon Lake which is a gorgeous lake and should be a destination known to all Arizonians. The lake is stocked with trout most of the year and has a run-off that keeps the lake at the desired depth. The run-off from the lake heads down deeper into the canyon and creates small pools and streams that were full, I mean FULL of fish. The only time I saw that many trout in that small amount of water was at my local cabela’s store, it would have been like shooting fish in a barrel and there were some huge trout in those pools. Check out the picture below of the largest pool of water in the canyon. At 6pm when we were at the point of a fish feeding frenzy and they were jumping like crazy, sure wish I had brought my pole.

As it was getting late on our trek down we had to find a place to set up camp rather than try to grab some trout dinner before the sun was exhausted. After reaching the lake we ending up about another mile down into the canyon before selecting our resting place for the weekend. Setting up camp in the dusk was not to bad and I think our selected spot was very, very nice. We had a nice high rock for a backdrop to our fire pit, a good clearing to provide enough room to camp and to play around in the wilderness and a close by stream to provide drinking water (filtered of course).

The first night was very cold, probably dipping into the low 20’s. I had three layers of clothing on and with my Kelty light year sleeping bag (45 degee rated) could only manage to get a few hours of sleep before I spent the rest of the night sitting by the fire waiting for the sun to come up. My friend on the other hand got a good nights sleep and layed around in the morning light waiting for the heat of the sun to reach our camp. I spent most of the early morning wandering around our location and collected items for some bush tea. I was going to make some tea from some juniper leaves, pine needles and some wild flowers, I bet it would have tasted good if I had the chance to make it. Later in the morning we hiked back up to our vehicle to get some more water. The hike up the canyon was rough and I could sense dehydration starting to set in. Once we were back at the truck we guzzled our left over gatorade from the day before and grabbed the extra water and headed back down into the canyon. After we were back at camp, my friend was experiencing some dehydration and I insisted he drink water immediately, he felt better after a while but was out of commission most of the rest of the day.

I was up and about practicing some bush craft skills and make my wife and daughters some new walking sticks. I was using my Ontario SP8 machete for the first time this weekend and have found it to be the most useful tool in my arsenal.

I created a figure four deadfall trap first and with the SP8 is was extremly easy to create the notches for my trap. It was my first real go at trap making and I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, these traps were not intended for use, just practice.

Here is some images of my snare trap, which worked very well and I would think that a well made snare can out perform a deadfall any day of the week.

After playing around near camp and practicing my bushcraft skills, by about 5pm I was completely exhausted and could no longer swing my SP8, so we started wandering around. Not far from our camp we ran into a fly fisherman who was having a great day fishing the little pools in the canyon and he offered to catch us a fish for dinner.
On his first cast he realed in a 12″ rainbow trout, I couldn’t believe that he nailed on the first try and I cooked that baby right up. I do carry some spices and some tin foil in my personal survival kit which made cooking the fish and eating the fish a lot easier.

We both crashed early (8pm) and at least I was able to sleep, it could have been because I was completely exhausted and it was a warmer night on Saturday. I only woke up once to check out some sounds near camp and after I realized it was not something that was going to eat me, I passed back out until morning. We awoke around 5am and cleaned up camp and prepared for the hike back out.

Early that Sunday moring I went to get pictures of some animal tracks that were nearby the stream. There were definatley some elk tracks and what looked like racoon tracks. I still have to research all the tracks that we discovered since tracking is not my thing. .

All and all it was a very fun and exciting backpacking trip and I’m looking forward to many more. I learned a lot about how to minimise the wieght in my pack and the exact tools that I need to take with me.