Prescott, Arizona

So part two of this trip takes us on one of the hiking adventures. We are in the middle of Arizona. Dominated by mountains, desert terrain and stunning landscape that very few places can beat.

We laid low for a day and went out locally to check out some hiking trails in Prescott Arizona. Sedona is about 1.5 hours from my uncles house in Chino Valley, so we decided to take it easy before we hit all the spots we wanted to in Sedona. Our first trail is called the Constellation Trail.

This is a very easy hike. Only around 2 miles long, it takes you through a little mountain and piles of round and jagged rocks. It is definitely a very unique place with different rock formations everywhere. These rocks are called granite dells and are known to be at least 1.4 billion years old. Granite dells are exposed bedrock and large boulders of granite that have eroded into an unusual lumpy, rippled appearance. Look closely at the rocks in the many pictures below. Most of the rocks here were once huge, rectangular shaped blocks. A combination of weather erosion and chemical alterations(called spheroidal weathering) over the past billion years made these rocks spit at places. Some of the places where they have split, are near straight, both horizontal and verticle. Some are massive blocks still and some are small. The weather erosion and flooding from the past billion years have move and shifted these rocks also. An amazing place indeed!

The trail is not the easiest to follow. There are no path markers(except for some spray paint on the rocks) and when it rains here, it kind of washes the trail away. Luckily, I know how to navigate by just looking at the trail map, memorizing it and knowing my general directions of north, south, east and west.

The Constellation Trail is dedicated to an United States Air Force crash that happened there in 1959. Taken from Wikipedia - "The crew left Litchfield Park NAS near Phoenix to conduct a local training mission at Prescott Airport. After completing several touch and go manoeuvres, the crew was flying at an altitude of about 300 feet east of the airfield when control was lost. The aircraft entered a dive and crashed in flames in a near vertical attitude in a wooded area located along Highway 89. The aircraft burst into flames and all five crew members were killed. It was reported that one of the propeller was feathered when control was lost."

Some of the debris from the plane is still left at the memorial site today.

Panoramic view from the middle of the trail.

The higher up you go on the trail, the crazier it got. It was more like scrambing over huge boulders in the higher areas. The rocks also got sharper and flatter, so in some places you had to climb to even get around. Jessica wanted to stay on the flatter, easier part of the trail. Boo hoo!! Notice the splits in the rocks and how straight they are from the spheroidal weathering and chemical alterations.

Jessica being risky!

Cute little lizard saying hi!

This was as far up as Jessica would let me go without freaking out! :-(

Panoramic view of the granite dells to the left and the valley floor of Prescott to the right.

You can barley see them, but way off in the distance, past the closest mountains, in the middle of the photo, is Humphreys Peak in Flagstaff. A 12,000 foot mountain that's over 66 miles away!!

Looking into the valley of South Western Prescott and more of the granite dells.

That lizard had his own personalized rock!!

As you can see, we got pretty up on high on the trail. It gave us beautiful views all around.

After the Constellation Trail, we had some lunch and headed off to Watson Lake. Watson Lake is a man made lake lying in the middle of the granite dells just like the area we visited while hiking the Constellation Trail. This was a very short hike, not even a mile, but it was stunning. The last time I visited this place was in 2008(I think) and the water was very low in the lake. There was a huge drought going on at the time and you could see where the water usually was. I'm guessing the lake was 8 feet lower at the time.

Now, the lake was almost filled at full capacity and water was even flowing out at the dam. It was stunning. The granite dells were popping out all over the place, even in the middle of the lake.

A view of the middle of the lake. You can kayak around the lake and visit unique areas. Maybe we'll do that next time!!

A view of the eastern part of the lake. To the far left of the lake is where the dam is located.

Panoramic view of the lake. I climbed pretty high up to get this picture!!

Jessica talking a selfie with..........bigfoot????

After Watson Lake, we headed back to my uncles house in Chino Valley for an amazing dinner and to rest up for the next couple days in Sedona!!