Rim Road Ruckus - Day 1

by Nick Coons
Aug 11, 2004

Some family and friends totaling eight people and one dog makes for a decent sized camping trip. With all of our equipment and passengers, we're up to three vehicles. We head north on SR 87 and make our regular stops along the way. As we continue up through Payson, Pine, and Strawberry, the temperature drops dramatically, and storm clouds are overhead.

North of Strawberry, we turn right on to Forest Road 300, where we notice a few mud puddles indicating that it's rained recently. Still worrying that we might get pummeled with rain, we continued on. Within five minutes, we found our first stop along the dirt road, right next to some ripe raspberries. After picking a few, the rain started coming down, we jumped back in our vehicles and continued up the road. Only a few minutes later, we found another patch of berries and pulled over.

This time, we had an opportunity to pick a few before the rain started again. However, it only drizzled for a while and very gradually started to rain more and more. By the time we noticed this, it was coming down pretty hard, so we quickly ran for our vehicles. Keep in mind that we're up on the rim, so in the middle of the day with cloud cover and rain, our clothes are wet, and the temperature is about 50 degrees. We ran back to our vehicles just in time to miss the hailstorm.

So we kept driving, and it came down harder and harder. Hail covered the ground. As we went farther on the dirt road, it kept slamming down. We were all very fortunate to leave the storm without any cracked windows. As we kept going, we noticed white patches covering the ground. In certain areas, it was almost difficult to tell if it hail or snow that covered the ground. Either way, I gathered some very nice photos of this, and it's a very interesting thing to see in Arizona

Arizona	(air-i'-ZON-u')
The State of Arizona comprises the extreme south-western portion of the United States. It is bounded on the north by Utah, on the east by New Mexico, on the south by Mexico, and on the west by California and Nevada.

in August.

Eventually, we made it to a campsite, the sky had cleared, and the temperature rose to about 60, a bit more comfortable. It was an amazing transformation. I was trying to prepare myself for having to setup my tent on a bed of ice. And thankfully, all of that had cleared up.

Setting up took very little time with everyone pitching in. Firewood was readily available, so we quickly started a fire and got dinner ready. The food was excellent; the s'mores delicious, the horseshoes were lots of fun, and my sleeping bag was ultra-comfortable. This was one of the best first days of camping ever.

Day 2 >>