May 14, 2016 – It has finally reached +100 degrees in Phoenix, so some friends and I decided to get out of town for the weekend and do some camping in a cooler part of Arizona. We drove up to Woods Canyon Lake, which is only 2 hours from Phoenix and about 30 miles outside of Payson, situated on the Mogollon Rim.

This was a first time camping experience for Rachel and Marina, but they were up for the challenge (although we may have overpacked a bit for one night of camping…LOL). Luckily Marina volunteered to drive us. I don’t think we could have fit the four of us and all our gear in the MINI.

It is still early in the camping season, so we didn’t reserve a spot at the Aspen campground, but it can book up pretty quickly in the summer months. We arrived around 11:00 am Saturday morning and the very friendly campground hosts assigned us a spot after paying for the site ($20).


After setting up the tents and gathering firewood (thanks Vanessa!), we walked down to the lake to check things out. On the way to the lake, we saw a group of Albert’s squirrels playing on the rocks and trees near the campsite. I had seen pictures of these cute little guys with the tufted ears, but never in person.

There is a little store that sells supplies and rents boats right next to the lake. Here we got some details about the 5 1/2 mile hike around the lake and asked about bald eagle sightings. We were in luck because there was currently a bald eagles nest right next to the lake being watched 24/7 by the Fish and Wildlife Service. They have a scope set up for visitors to stop and observe the eagles.

The hike around the lake is beautiful and takes 2-3 hours. We definitely stopped to have some fun along the way.  The hike is a nice combination of pine woods and lake front. We encountered a few downed trees along the trail, which just make the hike a little more exciting.

Apparently we were having a little too much fun on the hike and missed the bald eagle nest lookout on the first day, so we decided to come back tomorrow. We headed back to the campsite to start a fire and cook dinner. Chef Rachel had prepared some foil packs with chicken breast, squash and zucchini. She also served as fire master and it turns out she was pretty good at it. Not bad for a first time camper!

May 15, 2016 – We woke up early the next morning and headed back to the lake after breakfast to look for the bald eagles nest. It’s not too far from the starting point so we didn’t have to hike the whole thing again. The nest watcher was a girl named Danielle who recently finished her degree in biology and she is working in the field to gain experience for graduate school. She and some other watchers alternate shifts watching the nest.

She shared some pretty interesting facts about bald eagles. They mate for life, although they may have a couple of mates during their life due to age differences in partners. Both the mother and father take care of the babies and will alternate incubating the eggs and sitting on the chick in the first few weeks of its life. The nest we observed had one chick that was about 5 weeks old. Another chick had just disappeared (probably attacked by another type of eagle) the previous day.  During the first few weeks of a chicks life, at least one parent is always in the nest. As they grow older, the parents will spend more time away from the nest (but always close). They learn to fly at around 2-3 months old. 

The chick we observed will be part of a tracking program and is going to be banded by the Fish and Wildlife Service in the next couple of weeks. In order to do that, they must climb up the tree, remove the chick from its nest, take it to the bottom of the tree, band it and do a quick medical exam before climbing up the tree again to return it to the nest.

We had an amazing time camping and hiking at Woods Canyon Lake and I’m sure I will be returning here soon.