Our week in Prescott, Arizona

I was looking for a spring vacation spot that wasn’t snowed in and Prescott seemed to qualify. As usual, we rented a house for a week through VRBO. Unusually, we hit a few minor hiccups. First, our initial attempt to rent ended when the owner got confused over two inquiries coming at the same time. Luckily I caught the confusion but lost the bid for renting it. It wasn’t a big deal and we fell back to our second choice—a two bedroom cabin in the pines a short distance out of town. It turned out to be just OK. I think the owners were still getting used to renting their property and seemed willing to correct a few deficiencies.

Our exploration of the area involved hiking and geocaching. On our first day (Sunday) we headed for Willow Lake and hiked along some trails that wound through boulders and granite slick-rock, finally reaching a ridge where we could see the lake and beyond the main part of Prescott.

Hiking through the granite rocks near Willow Lake

Monday we fooled around downtown. Prescott has a central square containing the county courthouse surrounded by lawns. There were so many dog walkers it resembled a dog park. Across the street is (in)famous Whiskey Row, so named in the town’s rowdy early days. Afterwards we hiked around Thumb Butte, a prominent landmark visible from all over Prescott.

Thumb Butte

Tuesday we drove east to Jerome, an old mining town coming back to life as a tourist attraction. It’s only a bit over an hour away, but it seemed longer because it’s a crooked road. We spent most of our time in the State Park museum. Copper ore was primary, but a lot of gold and silver were recovered along with the copper. I think there is more to explore on the area’s dirt roads and trails than we had time for. Perhaps a return trip some day.

Rich copper ore is pretty.

We hiked among granite boulders again on Wednesday. The Granite Mountain area attracted me, but I found reference to a wildfire last year and wasn’t sure how extensive it was. I got the impression many trails were impacted so we chose something close to town near Watson Lake, but similar to what we had done on Sunday. Since we were downstream from the Watson Lake dam, we did have a flowing stream to add some variety.

Granite Creek, below Watson Lake.

I can’t remember when we last went to Sedona, but it was before digital cameras. On Thursday we returned for a day hike in Boynton Canyon. Wow! What a difference—so crowded and the town was so much different than what I remember. The six mile hike was still enjoyable.

Hiking in Boynton Canyon, Sedona

On Friday, our last day, we did a loop hike along a wash. It was nothing special, but we enjoyed it, passing by a small, native ruins and finding a few geocaches.

Speaking of geocaches, Prescott is home to a geocacher who puts incredible effort into constructing caches. Cachers make it a destination as a result. I solved one of his puzzles, but didn’t have time to find it, and couldn’t solve another puzzle I worked on. I did find one of his intricate puzzle caches, found the remains of a simple traditional, and could not find a highly camouflaged traditional cache, despite searching for about an hour. It’s worth a return trip if other cachers were along.

Links
—Photo gallery for Prescott vacation