Did a figure-8 loop including Pivot Rock Canyon and Toms Creek, and then some off trail and old jeep trails. Hit two areas where we had to fight our way through the dense vegetation. Really neat area. Saw a few others at camp sites but had the trails and remote jeep trails to ourselves.

Wanted to get out of te heat so headed up to the rim I had planned to do a totally different hike but ended up going down Tom canyon at the last minute. Got to the trailhead at 7:30am it was beautiful, I had already seen a cow elk with a very small calf, a coyote with 2 small pups and only one other person It was going to be a good day. Most of the morning I was hiking in the shade and that kept it cool almost till I had to turn around. This trail, well there isn't an actual trail and for that matter there aren't a lot of game trails either . This "canyon" was very cool! And very difficult! The cayon has running water and the ground is covered in flowers, mint and poison ivy . It started to get difficut at the 1 1/2 to 2 mile mark. The canyon is overgrown with vines, wild roses and the dreaded locust bush. To go much farther than I had gone I would recommend a mechete or brush knife. There are also lots and I mean LOTS of fallen trees to deal with. But with all that being said it was well worth the effort. I was at the 3 mile mark when I noticed that the water going down my back wasn't sweat my water bladder was leaking. I have no doubt that I could have drank the water in the stream but I'm not real fond of the smell . So I truned around and headed back.

I was looking for non-technical overnighter up on the rim to just getting away from it all and mid-April is usually when all the rim roads re-open so I figured I'd drive up and see how much snow was left and which roads I could access and was pleased to see no snow and the roads pretty much all re-opened.

I worked that Saturday morning, but I drove up that afternoon and got a few miles in on FR142 before parking and beelining across the rim towards middle Tom's Creek and dropped in via a steep side drainage. It'd been SO long since I'd been in WCC that I was quickly enchanted by even a hint of the sandstone goodness yet to come. Followed Tom's Creek downstream to its confluence with Clover Creek and continued on to the confluence with Willow Valley and the beginning of WCC and setup camp at a sweet campsite nearby. Nice, it only took 3 hours of scenic rock hopping to get here. Heated up a Mountain House, rolled out my bag & pad, made a small fire, watched as the full moon lit up the canyon thru the clouds, and listened to the many canyon sounds.

Woke up early the next cool morning, did the morning rituals, and made an early trek up Willow Valley to the 'springs'. The morning stayed cool and the water was chilly, so I avoided the creek when possible and stuck to less scenic side trails. The deciduous trees and ferns and grass haven't all grown back yet with much evidence of some massive winter flows that rushed thru here, but Willow Valley was still just as amAZingly beautiful as she ever is. On the way up, I saw a handful of geese and even a few elk grazing down in the creek. Once at the springs, I chilled at took a lunch break & power nap before returning downstream and taking loads more photos in the better light. At the confluence & back at camp, I packed back up my full backpack and by then I'd decided I wasn't going to return the way I came in but instead continue down WCC and exit up 142E trail and walk 142 back to my car. It's been a few years since I'd hiked straight thru this part of WCC so I was kinna surprised and how close every thing was together. Before I knew it I was passing the Maxwell trail, Tramway trail, the springs and Sundance Canyon already?!? I crossed the waist hike chilly creek to enter the Cathedral of lower Sundance Canyon as was treated with the lightly trickling 180ft falls and a 6th high ice/snow mound at the bottom. After checking that out, I continued around the corner and up the 142E trail and was pleased that I'd still have plenty of light for the LONG road walk back to my car.

WOW, West Clear Creek always has a way of blowing my mind every spring/early summer with it's amAZing beauty and I can't wait to start canyoneering here again.

Did from WCC to FR 142 with a full set of camping gear. Too hot to enjoy today. Plus, Clover is a bushwhack.

Flushed out two huge bull elk on the way upstream in the morning.

I think Toms Creek should be renamed "Elk Highway". There's enough elk droppings in the canyon to...well...I don't know how to complete that sentence.

Of note, the 4-5 hours in the trip description is for each way. It would be impossible to do a round trip in that much time.

Well I was looking for a way to access upper WCC this summer with just my car and then toddak posted this timely trail writeup. I've done that Willow Valley a few times, but I always wondered what WCC's other drier fork would be like to hike. I left work around noon on Friday and drove north to the FR142/AZ87 junction and parked at that small parking lot just off of the highway to save some wear on my car and just hiked the half mile up the meadows and over the ridge to the TH. From there it's just as the writeup describes with an easy old road to hike at first as it snakes around, then a couple miles in it narrows up a bit with some small pools/rock hopping/log jams for a few miles, and then it dries up and gets easier again for another mile until it reaches Tom's Creek. It was around 7pm when I reached that confluence (took about 3.5 hours to hike thus far) and decided to take advantage of the good camping spots instead of pushing on to the WCC confluence. After a pleasant night of camping, I packed up and continued on a couple more hours down the last few miles of Clover. That last stretch of hiking was only moderate with mostly dry boulder hopping, only a handful of logs to get around, and some pleasant strolls along the small creek. I found another great camping spot just at the end of Clover at the confluence with WCC and dropped my camping gear there to be my base camp for the weekend. With just my waterproofed gear for water hiking, I continued up that scenic Willow Springs a few miles to the 'springs' that the creek flows from and ate lunch and enjoyed the beautiful day in that amazing canyon. I took a short creekside nap before heading back and since it had warmed up nicely, I swam the few optional swimmers on the way downstream. I got to camp late in the afternoon and had some time to burn, so I checked out the bottom of that Shamrock Canyon nearby, gathered some firewood to make a fire, and read a few magazines better turning in for the night. If Saturday was my day to relax, then Sunday was definitely the day to get my butt kicked... Sunday morning, I woke up early again with the sun and hit WCC downstream a few miles going past Maxwell, Tramway, a short into the echo chamber of Sundance Canyon, 142E trail, and then took a short sidetrip up the bottom of Bear Canyon before heading back upstream. I passed a good dozen good campsite in those few miles and about half of them were filled on this 'busy' weekend. On the way back, I also verified the locations of those 142E & Tramway trails by hiking up them briefly since I haven't hiked down them yet but wanted to make sure I knew where they were in case I needed to bail on them during future WCC trips. I got back to my camp at the Clover/WCC/Willow Valley confluence around 1pm and loaded my camping gear up for the hike out up Clover. I was starting to drag those few miles up to the Tom's Creek confluence and decided to experiment with a potentially shorter more direct route up Tom's Creek and then bushwhack it up and over to FR142. I figured if Tom's Creek was technical I would have heard about it by now or read about it in Todd's book... I stuck to that windy creek about a mile before finding a bushy hikeable side canyon full of fallen trees that was heading in the direction I needed to hit that forrest road. It was a little steep, but I kept pushing up to the ridge, got a GPS lock, headed in the direction of my car, and shortly ran into that FR142 following it a couple miles to AZ87 and my car. It ended up being about two miles shorter and saved me another two hours of tiring canyon hiking. Yet another great adventure into WCC for an amazing 2.5 day trip...