Tonto Natural Bridge/ Hippie Hole

Well, weekends never go exactly as we planned. No surprise there, that's for sure.

Plan A for our weekend was to go to south mountain and hunt once again through the mines. But we were given the opportunity to go back to Fossil Creek. The first time we tried to go, we ended up blowing a tire thanks to some AWFUL road, so we did not get to experience the creek itself. There was a little miss communication with plan B, and we ended up about 8 miles from the waterfall at Fossil Creek, but couldn't get to it (stupid closed road). There was a trail down to the river, but we didn't have any water with us. We made it about a mile down before turning around

So, we invented plan C.



We had passed Tonto Natural Bridge many times, and have even gone so far as to research going there. We hadn't yet, and thought this was the perfect opportunity so that our day wasn't totally wasted. And I'm glad we did.

Since it is a state park, we were concerned that there would be some outrageous fee to go into the park. And there kind of was at five dollars a person. So we chatted up the park ranger to see how much there was to do. He was super friendly and told us about "Hippie Hole." We decided to check it out and the guy gave us a discount. One that I'm pretty sure he wasn't supposed to give us.

The first rule about Hippie Hole, is don't talk about Hippie Hole.

Oops. But I wont tell you where in the park it is :).

We were told it was a quarter mile past the normal swimming hole, but it was much father. Maybe. The trip back went super fast (except when I fell and had to pull myself out of a rock.) We kept coming up to various pools, but we were told that it would be about as big as an Olympic sized pool and 10 feet deep in some areas. Just as we were about to give up we finally found it!

I'm just glad we stopped and bought tubes, because the water was freezing! Coming out of the waterfall, it was probably 80 degrees but in the pool itself the water was maybe 65.

The water was full of crawdads, but they would run away every time I would try to catch one. My biggest worry was that one of them would try to pinch my booty.

We had to be out by five, though, because Hippie Hole is the main watering hole for animals, and we were told we would see bears and mountain lions before they can to the park for a javalina snack.




I have to say, if you ever do this hike, don't do it in flip-flops. That was my number one mistake. Having water is also a great idea. This is definitely a trip I would recommend to anyone, but I hope it can remain unknown to most. It made for a peaceful afternoon.

Bear Poop!