White Horse Lake in Northern Arizona

We did a day trip to White Horse Lake on Sunday at the recommendation of my brother and his wife who joined us for the day.  This is a very lovely small lake near Williams (or Parks) with a hiking trail that goes around the lake.  This trail can also be mountain biked.  Be aware if you are trying to escape the heat of Phoenix it was not much cooler up there -- 86 degrees.  The lake roads leading to camping areas are paved and they were not very busy which I imagine is due to the out-of-the-wayness of the lake.  There are many hiking trailheads near the lake campground as well (more on the trails at http://www.hikercentral.com/). 

There are some very positive aspects of this campground which make it more child friendly than Woods Canyon Lake Campground (last Sunday's day trip).  As I already mentioned it is small and out of the way which make it much less occupied than the Rim campgrounds.  The children were able to run and bike around on the paved roads without having to worry about getting run over by cars or ATVs.  Most camps are already setup with fire pits, barbecues and tables as well bathrooms strategically placed within easy walking distance of most camp sites.  Make sure you bring everything you need since there is not lake store and any shopping would be a good thirty to forty five minutes one way (slow driving due to 15 miles of dirt road).  The lake offers fishing, kayaking, canoeing and even "wading" -- I saw more than a few people and dogs wading in at the boat ramps to cool off.  Just  to emphasize how quiet this lake was in our eight hour trip we only saw to two kayaks on the lake.

We would definitely go to this lake campground again -- it was incredibly beautiful and very quiet.  However, we would go early or later in the summer due to the higher temps resembling too much of what we are trying to escape!

Our One Day Get-a-Way to Woods Canyon Lake, Arizona

We decided to get out of town for the day since the temperatures have been soaring to over 110 degrees here in lovely Arizona. Woods Canyon lake is about 2.5 hours northeast of us and a nice short jaunt to a cooler greener Arizona. It is a great place to acclimate our toddler to camping since it has a little bit of everything: hiking, biking, and fishing. We aren't big fisher-people, but hiking and biking we enjoy. Another nice feature of Woods Canyon is a very long paved biking trail that is not on or next to the road, but set off the road by fifteen feet or so. We are unsure of its complete distance but it is at least 5 miles. What we like about this paved trail is we can ride the bike with our toddler on board (iBert fits my husband's bike comfortably)without worrying about getting hit by a car. On this particular trip we decided to set up the tent so Ethan could nap at his regular time -- he really liked this! During our hike we got to get a glimpse of two baby eagle chicks who were nesting off of the lake trail (the trail around the lake is about four miles and it takes about 2.5 hours to traverse). The forest service has the the trail re-routed to avoid the nest and have set up scopes so visitors can see the chicks and their parents.

Our son really enjoyed our little camping and hiking trip and says he wants to go again. Fortunately for us summer is upon us and the thing we like to do best is leave the summer heat behind and head for the cooler country. And there are plenty of camping days left since Arizona summers last until November!