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The past couple of rim country camping trips, I have been locating sink holes on the topo maps and have been hiking to and exploring them quite the vegetation and wildlife make the sinkholes home.

Have you been to the Military Sinkhole Trail #179 yet?

If that is just off of the rim road then yes, of the other two, one was located near Woods Canyon Lake and the other near Willow Springs Lake.

That's the one. We did that one last fall and got off the trail and wondered around for a while...not sure we ever saw the sinkhole? Was it obvious?

it's more of a depression with foliage like
http://hikearizona.com/phoZOOM.php?ZIP=392

then a barren rock cut like
http://hikearizona.com/phoZOOM.php?ZIP=6795

...I think, never been there myself

These sink holes were not very obvious, they look liked you were walking down into a ravine. Once you got down in the bottom due to the vegetation you really can't see the rim of the sinkhole on these sinkholes.

Cool...sounds like we didn't miss too much with the sinkhole! But...the different views along rim road are pretty much awesome. I wasn't sure, but I thought I could see Four Peaks from there...is that a possibility? Also, have you ever checked out the Chevelon Lake area? Seems to be some nice terrain around there.

In response to Rodney's reply:

I had plans to backpack through chevelon canyon up to the lake but the rodeo-chedeski fire put a damper on the plans. I would still like to go sometime.

We checked out Chevelon, Bear and Woods Canyon Lakes last October while camping at Christopher Creek for 4 days. That whole area is sure one big burst of color in the fall.

Yes you can observe Four Peaks and Mt. Ord along the rim. Stop by the visitors center along AZ 260 at the turnoff (located on the south side of the road) to Woods Canyon Lake (Rim Road, Forest Road 300). I have been hiking and exploring off trail into sink holes and the canyons, Woods, Willow, Chevelon and Leonard.

I hiked Chevelon Canyon from the crossing about two weeks ago. Went about three miles downstream in 100+ degree weather with my pack goats, and found no potable water, just a few stagnant pools full of dead fish. (And tons of bear sign.)

So I turned around and hiked upstream from the crossing about a mile and found more water, but still pretty nasty. Lots of dead fish, lots of bear sign. The water quality in Chevelon is always pretty, ah, marginal, but I draw the line at dead fish and crawdads and green algae in my drinking water, iodine or no.

After about a mile, I was out of water, it was very hot, and I wasn't sure if I'd find more potable water if I continued upstream, so I called it quits and went back to the car. Only planned a day hike anyway, and I suspect if I'd gone back in farther I would have found potable water -- but I didn't want to find out the hard way in that heat that it wasn't there. Plus the sheer amount of bear sign was making me nervous. I'm usually not bothered by the occasional bear, but there was enough fresh sign to make me worry about rounding a corner and bumping into Yogi.

I will say that the vegetation looks very good down in the canyon. The ponderosa is nice and healthy -- there's a lot of old growth in the canyon, huge old trees that have never been cut. Didn't see any bark beetle kills except among the pinon at the very top. So, hopefully, the monsoon rains will refill Chevelon and things will be back to normal there.

I've hiked that canyon several times (but never made it all the way to the lake) -- when there's actually water, it's very beautiful, with big pools of water and lots of wildlife. Lots of black bear and elk.

Leva