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The Sound of Water Music

Hiking Wet Beaver Creek, Arizona

By Michael Wolcott

In Flagstaff, where I live, the one local "river" is an ephemeral drainage that runs 8 inches deep for a day or two during spring runoff. So in the warmer months, I often find myself craving the sweet music of cool, flowing water.
Luckily, there is relief nearby.
Wet Beaver Creek, just an hour south of town, offers a perfect cure for water deprivation syndrome. If June or July finds you suffering from this ailment, I prescribe grabbing lunch and water bottle and taking a walk up the creek on the Bell Trail.
The seven-mile round-trip to Bell Crossing passes through a messy, vibrant web of biological communities. It's an easy hike that offers eye-popping beauty, potential for solitude, and some of the best, most accessible swimming holes in this part of the world.
Like most major drainages that carve into the stacked sediments and volcanic deposits of the Mogollon Rim, Wet Beaver Creek is a slice of riparian heaven. Viewed from above, Wet Beaver's tree-filled river bottom looks like a slithering emerald-green snake; the iron-stained walls of Supai sandstone appear ready to bleed.
Wet Beaver Creek rises from perennial springs 12 miles east of the trailhead, and 2,000 vertical feet above it, flowing 20 miles to its confluence with the Verde River. The 6,700-acre Wet Beaver Creek Wilderness richly deserves federal protection. The biodiversity is impressive. Maidenhair ferns grow two feet away from prickly pear cactus. Spiky crucifixion thorns, thickets of catclaw, and groves of 10-foot-tall ocotillos are common. Blackberry bushes spring up in sunny spots amid the riparian jungles of sycamore, ash, cottonwood and alder.
Recreational use of the lower canyon is quite heavy in summer, so a trip to Wet Beaver is best enjoyed with an early start. When I visited in April, the parking lot at the canyon mouth was empty at 7 a.m. When I emerged at noon, 20 vehicles crowded the trailhead.
The trail was completed in 1932 by rancher Charlie Bell (of the telephone family) who wanted a driveway for his cows between winter pasture in the Verde Valley and summer range up on the Mogollon Rim. Long before ranchers arrived, Sinaguan people made their livings in and around the canyon: ruins, rock art and pottery shards are easy to find.
For the most part, the Bell Trail follows a route along a sandstone bench well above the streambed, providing great views of the riparian area, the canyon and the surrounding mountains and valleys. Several user trails lead down to the waterside; the more obvious ones generally indicate good swimming holes or popular fishing spots.
Smallmouth bass and stocked trout (German brown and rainbow) thrive in Wet Beaver Creek. Visitors might even spot a playful, sleek river otter. (While the native Sonoran or Southwestern otter has not been observed in decades, a subspecies from Louisiana was introduced to the Verde River drainage by Arizona Game and Fish Department about 25 years ago, and is doing well.) Other resident mammals include elk, deer, black bear, cougar and coyote. Javelinas browse the rocky, cactus-strewn slopes; snakes and the occasional tarantula make appearances on the hiking trail.
The canyon is also a birders' paradise. Ospreys soar above the treetops, selecting fish to snatch from the creek. The once-threatened peregrine falcon does well here, dive-bombing smaller birds at 200 mph from the black ledges of basalt that define the canyon rim. Plenty of owls, hawks and other raptors use the canyon, too.
Stream-flows in Wet Beaver Creek can be dangerous during spring runoff or after really big storms. But for most of the year it is a serene thread of clear water. On a warm day, visitors will be inclined to get wet, or at least sprawl on a slab of pink sandstone and shed some clothes. Abundant greenery screens most picnic spots from trail traffic, and the splashing creek provides a soundtrack for daydreams.
Bell Crossing has deep, spectacular swimming holes and plenty of slick rock lounging space. This is where most hikers turn around. Steeper cliffs and confined deep-water pools discourage casual wanderers from going much further upstream. The Bell Trail climbs the canyon's south wall here, to the high, grassy plateau. Eleven miles from the trailhead, the Bell Trail ends at Forest Road 214.
For explorers who don't have time for an out-and-back trip to Bell Crossing, the Weir Trail offers a briefer round-trip (5.5 miles) to soak up Wet Beaver's water music. It drops from a signed junction with the Bell Trail to a U.S. Geological Survey gauging station on the creek, where the sandstone shelves make a fine picnic spot.
In its first two miles, the Bell Trail also links with two other side routes - the White Mesa and Apache Maid trails (both signed). Each provides a route out of the canyon and offers interesting possibilities for all-day or multi-day loop hikes that re-enter the canyon further upstream. There is no water above the rim, though, so careful planning and basic orienteering skills are necessary.
The Apache Maid Trail climbs the canyon's north wall, then skirts the rim, ending near the lookout tower on Apache Maid Mountain, a dozen miles to the northeast. This trail is patchy and difficult to follow across the high, patchy scrubland. The mile-long White Mesa Trail ascends some 800 feet to the canyon rim. From there, a short hike to the top of White Mesa offers a panoramic view of the surrounding area. The San Francisco Peaks are visible to the north; to the west is the red rock country of Sedona.
To access lower Wet Beaver Creek, use Interstate 17 and take the Sedona exit (#179). Travel east from the exit on Forest Road 618 for 2.5 miles to the signed turnoff for the Bell Trailhead. Stock users will prefer the Bruce Brockett Trailhead (just past the Bell Trailhead) which has trailer parking and connects to the Bell Trail.

Michael Wolcott writes from Flagstaff and likes to test the waters, wherever he is.