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| Hiking | 3.20 Miles |
500 AEG |
| | Hiking | 3.20 Miles | 2 Hrs | | 1.60 mph |
| 500 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | We topped off our vacation in Northern AZ with a trip to Canyon de Chelly. I have been wanting to hike the White House Ruins Trail to knock it off the 100 Classic Hikes in AZ book, and this trip seemed like the perfect opportunity to do that.
We actually got our crew on the trail by 7:30am, which was a minor miracle in itself rounding up 4 kids, 3 adults and 2 cars. This was the best thing because for most of the hike, the temperature wasn't too hot at all. When we arrived at the White House Ruins, they were in shade the whole time. This made for cooler temps, but it didn't help so much with the photos. The trail down into the canyon is at least as interesting as the ruins are. It was very cool passing thru the tunnels and along the path carved into the sandstone. I was a little nervous at the start walking by the cliff edge and wondered about exposure along the trail. It actually wasn't too bad, but we made sure the kids stayed away from the edges in those sections.
We saw one other group arriving at the ruins as we were leaving and a couple other single hikers along the trail. Nice to see something as cool as this and still manage to be away from the summertime hordes of tourists.
After we were done, we took a ride to see Spider Rock and the Sliding House Ruins overlook. Since we had a nearly 5 hour drive back to Mesa (in what ended up going thru a hailstorm outside of Payson), we decided to skip the north rim drive for this trip. Besides, after the 3 mile hike to White House, the 100-200 yd walks across the rock to the overlooks in the raising temperature was beginning to take it's toll on the kids. We stopped at the visitor center, where I got a nifty long sleeve hiking t-shirt with the White House Ruins on the front. Nice way to cap off a nice trip throughout Northern AZ. |
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