Decided to go out to an old favorite spot this Memorial Day Weekend to camp and s'plore. Used to take a group from my old church there, and I and the usual suspects have made the journey a few times as well. This time we proposed the idea to Dana and Jonathan's new church, Poiema Life. They have an outdoors group so we figured the hiking, camping, and fishing would work well for them.
At first it looked like the turnout would be low and I was dreading another drive up alone. But Friday at 2pm, I met up with Dana and Jonathan and Cat showed up, filled my passenger seat and we headed north.

This year we tried something different. Instead of hiking everything down, we borrowed Chris's aluminum boat and dropped it in at the other end of the lake. Then we shoved Jonathan off in the rain and fog to row the majority of our stuff to the south shore where we'd camp. It worked well and he rowed the mile before we could drive back and hike down to meet him. It stopped raining and we set up our tents, cooked up some doggers on the fire and watched the stars come out.

The next morning we goofed around, Dana fished a little, and Cat and I rowed the lake. It sprinkled a little off an on, and then Game & Fish made their rounds. I'm not a trout fisher. They're generally small, don't have much meat, have too many small bones, and cost 16 extra bucks to fish for on top of the regular fishing license cost. Jonathan doesn't fish, for lack of patience, not swear words. So when they came up and asked for our licenses, the explanations why Dana was the only one fishing (and licensed) were made. Unfortunately, the two guys who had been binoc’ing along the trail were sure that Jonathan had been at it. They stated that they saw his red hatted, sideburned, poncho’d butt reeling for a while. Even though they were mistaken an awkward challenge of merit took place. Eventually they backed down and no disrespect was uttered on our side.

Shortly after, more of the group made it down and set up 4 more tents near ours. Not 30 minutes later, two Forest Rangers, one yielding an AR-15 burst down the hill into our campsite. As soon as they identified their selves they made their way to me asking for identification and to remove my weapon. Before I handed it to them, I informed them that it was indeed loaded and chambered. They accepted it and the next question was if I had a CCW. I replied yes sir, but the officer said he didn’t need to see it since I was carrying open. I produced my permit with my ID anyway and waited as they unloaded my gun and clip and called my identification in to base. My identity confirmed with no marks, my gun and ammo were returned with the condition it would not be reloaded until they had left and were out of sight.

It turns out my all time favorite camping spot is in violation at BCL because Arizona considers water to be a protected resource- that and the "new" no-camping signs that were not seen to us in our darkened hike down. Long story short, other campers on the road above had narced us out and the Rangers were on alert as well because of all the gunfire in the surrounding forest. We chatted with them and explained our dislike of "neighborhood camping" and how we'd miss this spot after this out seventh time in solitude yet apparently out of compliance. The Rangers conversed with base, asking me other questions on the nature of our group and decided to wave fines if we packed it up. We had no other option and had to comply. We tore down camp, put the ring leaders' stuff back in the boat, shoved Jonathan off again and helped hike the new people’s gear up and out.

With daylight soon to fade, we found a large open spot where anyone was free to camp as long as they didn't mind cleared forest, road noise, and when the wind picked up, some idiot's shared music. At that point I was more than ready to call Uncle and just leave but I was convinced to stay by sisterly powers. Looking back I’m proud I controlled myself, and I'm glad we stayed. We reset up camp again after hauling the boat back up the hill and dogged it up at our now larger fire and company.

The next day most people wanted to head back down to the lake, but now that I knew I could not cherish and explore her in the same way, she was tainted for my love. Already studying the surrounding areas ahead of time (big surprise), I decided to take a drive with the GPS and my passenger seat full again. We ended up finding mud and an endless supply of better camp spots, including creeks and along stands of aspen. After one of the many creek/gorge crossings we were flagged down and told that an ATV had gone over the edge. Luckily the driver had bailed but the quad lay busted up far down at the bottom of the creek. We were implored to help with recovery so we unspooled the winch line out leaving all but 5 wraps for security. Even with all of that a tow strap had to be added at the quad end to reach it directly below. The edge down did have a slight slope, enough for the owner to carefully scramble down to meet his 3 friends trying to help below. I winched at an angle instead of straight down, but it had to be dragged backwards up because the front wheels were canted and dragging into the dirt. With them trying to push to keep the winch happy, and I two footing the brakes in 4Lo Rev, we actually managed to get it all the way up to the top. I lost the verbal bet with Cat but got a pair of leather gloves for my effort. We had plenty of onlookers on quads and golf carts come by to look with wonder.

We continued on, finding more trees, flowers, water, mud, and an old cabin and then returned back to camp after about 4hrs. Right when we were returning it began raining again and hailing a bit on the all the lake goers open tents and clothes hanging on the community tinlkle wire. We fixed everything up but it soon stopped just as quickly. We hiked down to the lake ourselves to find Jonathan and Dana who had taken the boat back out. After hiking almost to the other end, they came rowing up and Dana showed off her three trout. I helped her gut and clean them. They rowed and we walked back and helped once more walk the boat up. Dana and Cat cooked up the trout on the fire with butter and seasoning and they turned out great. We of course dogged it up one last time before hitting the sack.

In the morn we woke, tore down camp, drove out, hit some more mud and then Denny’s in Payson. Still an awesome weekend, but unfortunately probably my last trip out to Bear Canyon Lake for good. :'(


I was off-duty but I saw two girls with cameras while there. ;)

Skatchkins wrote: We ended up finding mud and an endless supply of better camp spots, including creeks and along stands of aspen


but unfortunately probably my last trip out to Bear Canyon for good.

You sir, are the sweet and sour of write ups... Happy. The sad.

Sounds like a great weekend. thanks for the detailed write up. I would have liked to seen the better camp spots. I too have my trout stamp, so I side with the evil red capped man's fisherwife. :clap:

Stole some pics of our excursion from my passenger:
Obviously the down the hill shots can't show the scale but the one angle one was pretty accurate.





















Dana where yo pics at?

Email from the quad guy:

Hello friend ,
I wanted to thank you both again for the help at bear canyon lake this past weekend . “thank you”
I like to send a thanks gift to you both, what would be a good address to send it too ?? If your friend has an email could I get it so that I can send him a thanks
I noticed poiema website there was group outing to beautiful bear canyon that’s wonderful, like it was meant to be. I never got to take any pictures
if possible could you send me some pics or video of the rescue.

Nice Job!!!

Excellent work Mike. We buy all of these expensive recovery toys and it's good when we can use them to help other people out.

Dozzer wrote:Excellent work Mike. We buy all of these expensive recovery toys and it's good when we can use them to help other people out.

speaking of... Mike - can you grab my high lift from Bob next time you see him? No rush, but you see him more often than I do and I see you fairly often, so I can just get it from you.

Sure

The drive up


Michael & Cat taking a boatride down the lake

Jonathan and Michael playing horseshoes

Michael setting up

The pretty lake


Jonathan rowing while I fish

My fishies

Cooking em

Beautiful!
That motor boating guy looks just like the poncho face I saw fishing. :lol:

"And now lets put in some happy little trees. Happy little tree here and here..."

Your new title needs to be Bob Ross

fatbob309 wrote:


"And now lets put in some happy little trees. Happy little tree here and here..."

Your new title needs to be Bob Ross

another spit take. I love Bob Ross. I record him on PBS each week and watch it with Katelyn on Saturday mornings when I'm home.

Awesome pictures. Makes me want to head North!

...

So are you going to camp here this year?

Thanks for poking a stick in my old wound ya donkey.
You really just wanted to go here this year didn't you?
I may have a new plan for this year's water getaway from people.

You guys do some awsome exploring! I'd love to see these areas