Memorial Day Week End Fun

This is Gordon Lavine's stoneyard - one place we stopped for stone

The fun began with a trip over to Ash Fork for a load of stone. We left Friday morning and made our usual stop at Jacob's Lake for cookies. We lunched in Flagstaff at the mall and then picked up our load. We headed back and stopped in at Jacob's Lake for dinner. The place was very crowded with holiday Grand Canyon sight seers. We drove a few miles out and then took a dirt road and found a really nice campsite. It was pretty cool (there was ice in our water jug in the morning), but we were cozy in our tent and enjoyed a full moon/starry night walk before hitting the sack. In the morning we took another walk to see where we had gone in the dark. It was a beautiful Ponderosa Pine forest and was so cool and beautiful we hated to pack up. We went back to Jacob's Lake for a scrumptious breakfast and then headed home. Unfortunately I forgot the camera and only got a couple of phone pictures before the phone battery died :o(

On Monday we decided to hit the trail up to Mill Flat to see how the big snowfall had affected the area after all the fire damage. It was perfect weather. There is more water than we have ever seen in the stream this year because of the heavy snows. There was one really big avalanche area where the trail has been completely covered up by fallen trees - something caused by the fire/snow combination. We did make it to the top after many stream crossings and had lunch at the campsite which still had a couple of feet of snow. We only met one other group of hikers - Besty Fowler and some friends. After coming down we drove the Pinto road and on up to New Castle reservoir and then back to check out the new camp/picnic grounds at Pine Valley. We stopped off at the Heaton's up in the residence cabins to look at their chimney that needs repairing because heavy snow knocked it down. It was a beautiful day!