Slavin Gulch is my favorite local watering hole, and it's best after several days of monsoonal rains. I decided Saturday night to offer that as a Meetup choice for Labor Day Monday (realizing at the last minute this was a holiday weekend and many weren't home). To my surprise, both Claire and Don signed up. I took Minnie as the dog. We were a nice threesome.
It was a hot day, though with no cloud cover. Luckily we got started early enough, at 9am, but an hour into our hike I felt the sun. To my surprise we were alone. If there were any holiday celebrators, they had already left the primitive campsites. I was on the look-out for snakes but luckily didn't see any. These rocky crags are famous for housing aggressive Diamondbacks.
Today's pace was slow-to-moderate. None of us were in a mood to hike fast, and Don was very accomodating to Claire. She kept apologizing for making us wait on her, but we didn't mind. We all benefitted from taking many rest breaks as the heat reflected off the rocks. My goal of leading this hike was to show others the beauty of this little-known rock treasure. It was not to train at Olympic speed up the rocky trail! Minnie also needed the shade.
As expected, there wasn't as much water in the creek as last year, when I led a hike here August 24th, but there was still water crossing the trail at tributaries and higher up, near the "hippy shrine," more water. There was more than enough to keep Minnie hydrated.
It had been a year since I was here, but the trail seemed overgrown and I could barely remember where the shrine was. After taking a shaded break near the three-mile turn-around, we found it!
We rested at my favorite falls on the way back. All of us got into the water to get our hair wet. We tossed sticks for Minnie. We all agreed that the waterhole was a pleasant escape, a piece of paradise, and a shaded spot that offered some relief. We saw no trash anywhere to take back with us.
I don't know how long we were at this spot but by 1:30pm the clouds started getting darker. We were at least 1.5 miles from the trailhead so we headed back to our cars, hiking back the way he hiked in. Claire drove herself and I drove with Don back to Sierra Vista. This was a pleasnt, non-exhausting hike. I'm glad I got to lead it.
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