Bull Pen

This past Sunday afternoon, Max and I went on a nice little hike in search of a rope swing in a watering hole near a place called the Bull Pen Ranch. The road to the trailhead is a few miles away from our house, but you have to drive a ways down some dirt roads, so the drive to the trailhead is about 40 minutes. Who cares-look at the view! It was cloudy and raining in spots. Above is the view from the car shortly after turning off of the highway(260).

The blooming century plants(yellow things) were a little far away for the camera, but cool nonetheless. If you click on the photo, it will get big.

We searched for the rope swing once before, a few weeks ago. Max totally thought this tree was a bear, and we all got a little adrenaline rush out of it. Now we call it "Bear Tree". It is real close to the beginning of the trail.

After a walk through the woods, the trail opens up for a bit, before going back into the woods along Clear Creek.

This was our view an the right. Look at the different colors in the rock. I'm thinking I need to study a little geology.

The trail eventually led us here, along the red rocks. I mentioned to Max that it looked like Sedona and he said, "It probably IS Sedona". We had been walking for about 30 min.

We thought this could be the spot, but no rope swing in sight. The trail was stopped by the rock ledge, but picked up across the creek. We crossed over and walked a little further before deciding that the tree with the swing must have fallen into the creek, then turned around.

Another geologic curiosity.

This was another spot we thought the swing could've been. It is a nice place to hang out anyway, swing or no swing. On our way out, we actually saw a couple people hanging out here. Bull Pen is a pretty popular place. We only saw a few groups of people, but lots of evidence(garbage) of humans. For us city folk, the occasional ciggarette butt is comforting in a weird way. It can get a little creepy being out in the middle of nowhere all by yourself. Hopefully, that feeling will eventually pass.

We saw some critters, including this desert millipede. They are venomous, but I don't think they're deadly.

As we were driving home, this view from the road caught my eye. I felt like we were looking down on a rainforest. Around here, you can always tell where rivers or creeks are by the trail of tall trees.

This is the western edge of the White Mountains. We have not been up that way yet, but I think it's kind of like the Door County of Arizona, only with cowboys.

Our hike was about two hours total, not including drive time. We never found the rope swing, but saw some beautiful sights and interesting critters(bright blue lizard), and had some nice time together. I'm sure we will search again.