North Bass Trail

Headed out to Swamp Point yet again.. this time to do the North Bass Trail. Happened upon three days off with Jesse for the first time since June so we ditched our Wave permit and decided to go backpacking.

Lots of creek walking and boulder-hopping so the hike took much longer than expected to get down. We had just gotten to the Tonto by noon when it was getting pretty hot.
Luckily the clouds rolled in and we had some nice cloud cover for the last stretch of descent through the Tapeats Sandstone down to the creek.

First view of Shimumo creek.. glorious! You can hear it pretty clearly from up there and all you want to do is run down to it and get wet.
Ended up lounging by the creek for a while.. napping, snacking and cooling off. Not much else to do in the middle of the day down at the bottom.


Our campsite on right. Set up camp and our little tarp/tent just before the rain rolled in. It stopped long enough for us to venture out, make dinner and watch the bats, birds, and dragonflies feast on all the mosquitos (really cool)... But then the storm continued most of the night.

Ronnie Dean... The rattlesnake that hung out at the edge of our camp for most of the night and morning. Named him after Ron from GCA and the story he told about a young woman naming her newborn child after him when he "helped deliver it"... An extreme exaggeration he told some fellow deputies after they gave him crap for delivering a baby hahaha.

Headed down to the river and ran into some fish biologists on a Humpback Chub trip. They told us to go down to the river and eat some trout... so we did. Stopped to check out Bass's camp for a moment as well.



View from a little terrace we had to climb up to before we descended to the river.

Made it to the NPS camp to find none other than our river ranger friend manning the place (lounging in the shade reading a book). So we chilled on the beach, ate trout, chatted... and then he lead us downstream back to Shinumo Creek where we jumped off a little pouroff into a pool. FUN! Although the climb back up was a bit ridiculous so we only did it once.

Got poured on on the way back which was refreshing... and made for a beautiful double rainbow upon our return to camp.




Next day made breakfast and headed back up via White Creek. More creek walking and boulder hopping. Twas a bit tough and time consuming.









Made it to the slotty canyon part and out just as it started raining.. Perfect timing!









Huge boulder at the top of the canyon... just another reminder of how scary flash floods are! That thing was about the size of a smart car haha.
Slowly but surely continued the hike out. Got clouded out and rained on which was perfect! Made for a much cooler, more comfortable hike... And listening to Thunder booming and echoing throughout the canyon is amazing.


Finally made it up to Swamp point around 6pm. It was cold up here! But beautiful. Turned out to be a pretty perfect hike.. good weather, smoked trout, cool rocks and scenery... can't beat it.