Another nice hike today. Fabulous temperatures are making it way too nice to stay home. We headed for Gold Creek, we've been up Gold Creek before, but this time we decided to follow the creek down to where it flows into the Tonto Gorge, heading for Roosevelt Lake. Gold Creek has quite a bit of history. During the gold rush of 1848 when prospectors were heading for California in droves, some of them never made it because Arizona's riverbeds were also rich in gold. Gold Creek, aptly named, was one of them. Prospectors found placer gold, staked their claims and made their camps along the banks of Gold Creek, never proceeding on to California.
It's a fairly strenuous hike, boulders to climb over, and lots of crisscrossing the creek to try to stay dry. The rocks along the way make it a rockhound's heaven. We did manage to bring back a bag of them for our Cactus garden.
We made it as far as we could go. In warmer weather, we would have waded to the end to see the creek as it tumbled into the gorge below, but today the water was still a bit cold to wade in. This is one spot we'll return to, next time, bringing our gold pans to try our luck.
