![]() The Bob Bear Trail parking area will be on the right in about 5 miles. ![]() How to get there: from Payson, drive 18 miles north on the US-87 to Strawberry, then turn left on to Fossil Creek Road. The waterfall at the bottom makes everything worth it. I do better with steep inclines than Paul, possibly because I’m lighter, but I honestly didn’t feel much better than this when we finally made it back up.ĭespite the difficulty, I highly recommend this hike and would go back in a heartbeat if I had the chance. We wore off the chill of the creek by the end of the first mile, and I ran out of water with at least a mile to go (fortunately Paul had extra, since his pack was bigger). Paul wasn’t any better off, the elevation and exertion combining to completely exhaust him. As I didn’t yet have my POTS diagnosis, I wasn’t wearing a heart rate tracker – but there were quite a few times when I had to stop and rest because my heart felt like it was racing so fast it was almost fluttering. The steep grade of the trail, nothing more than an inconvenience for the knees on the way down, makes the hike up incredibly strenuous. Hiking back out again, however, is when the trail really shows its difficulty. If you are not an experienced hiker, start with something else and work up to this one. In retrospect, however, I do recommend taking the warnings seriously. But we’d both done longer hikes before, so we weren’t too concerned. Combined with the trailhead map letting us know this was an 8 mile round trip with a 1500 foot elevation change… and the brochure from the forest service telling us this was one of the most strenuous hikes in all of Tonto National Forest… this was a bit alarming. While a portion of the parking lots can only be accessed from Camp Verde, the Bob Bear Trailhead can only be reached from Strawberry, which worked out well for us!Īs we began, we were greeted by multiple warning signs. Bob Bear Trailhead is one of the less popular parking spots in the area, and it was early in the summer, so we were still able to reserve a parking pass just a few days before our trip. The Fossil Springs Recreation Area is a permit area due to its popularity, it had been completely closed down several years ago, and reopened in limited capacity following a time of rehabilitation. Neither of us had been there before, and both of us would gladly go back! For our anniversary a few months back, Paul and I went up to Payson and hiked Bob Bear Trail down to the Old Fossil Creek Dam in the Fossil Springs Wilderness.
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