Laura Deall

Laura Deall

The Bull Pen

07/07/17

The trail itself was interesting because being a more "inside person" I am not used to navigating trails or the outdoors in general. This was our first outdoor adventure and from the reviews, I thought this would be a safe day trip. Well I was mostly right. The service road is very very rocky and I was unprepared for that in my little Mazda2. But we made it and the car did ok. It's a little nerve wracking when a giant truck decides to fly past you as you're on the very edge of a cliff though. Regardless. We got to the trailhead and started to make our way to the swimming hole. From different reviews I was generally able to navigate us without a map (there is no cell service to use the gps map I have planned to use) until about halfway there when we came to what was supposed to be a fork in the road and it was actually a trident. Keeping right at that fork was not a good idea because we came to a part of the river covered in spider nests which was not a great time for an arachnophobe like me. But we made it out alive after running into a giant crawdad and then running away. After some backtracking we ran into some girls leaving the spot and they pointed us in the right direction. We made it to the first swimming spot where we met a nice family that directed us to the cliff jumping spot. When we did get to the main swimming hole there were quite a few people there with their kids but we didn't feel crowded at all. The water was chilly but fantastic against the summer heat. It's such a beautiful area that's tucked against the valley wall. We were quite far from our home in Casa Grande but it was absolutely worth it. We were able to swim for hours and jump the cliffs and admire everything around us for hours before gathering some rocks for our collection and head home. It started to rain just as we were leaving which was a little scary going back up the service road but my trooper little car got us there. Overall, I am so happy we made the journey up here and will definitely be coming back. Next time, we'll be bringing my dog. She can't swim but loves to splash in the water so the little pebble beach area next to the main swimming hole will be perfect for her. She'll love it just as much as we do.

5.0