White Tanks Waterfall Hike

 

One of the best things about living in AZ, is that even on a cold day, you can still go outside. Cold is relative, I know, but in AZ, a cold day is low 60's. We do have colder days, but few. This hike was something I had planned for when BJ came to town, but as you know, the superbowl nixed her plans. My kids LOVE this hike and so we went anyway. The waterfall, although not heavily flowing was fun for the kids to play in and not so cold that they were miserable after we took off their wet clothes. This particular hike is a family friendly hike at the White Tank Mountains. We live in the Estrella Mountains, but have a beautiful view of these mountains from our back yard. The hike itself is about 2 miles round trip, but only the hearty actually ever see the fall. Most people get to the little river and think they've reached the top. There are actually 2 falls and the first wasn't even flowing today. The pool from this fall was about 4 feet dep. I've given you a mosaic of our day and one single shot of the fall with my kids at the top. You can't even see the original "pool" or "white tank" from my view point, but it was about 6' deep today. The entire hike offers birdseye views of ancient petroglyphs. They are fun to spot and fun to speculate on their meanings. Some are almost gone, so it's like a treasure hunt of sorts. Today we also found a geocache. We're not "big" into geocaching, but it was fun to find! Maybe when the kids are a bit older and can do the research, we'll do more of it. The desert is going to be really beautiful this spring. We FINALLY have had some rain this winter! The river we cross each day has been running for a couple of months now! Perhaps our drought is finally over.