Since I’ve almost exclusively hiked the Payson area with my kids (they do have the best creek systems that I know of, after all), I wasn’t quite sure where to start in the Prescott area. Thinking that simplest would be best, I decided on the Butte Creek Trail, starting in the Stricklin Park preserve.
This is very much a town trail, not a wilderness area at all – the trailhead is in a neighborhood, and part of the trail runs adjacent to a golf course and some backyards – but it is still wooded and beautiful. For a short hike with little kids for whom any forested and natural area is novel and exciting, it was fine, but I wouldn’t make a point of returning on my own unless I lived in Prescott (it’s a nice trail, but not worth a 2 hour drive all by itself).
The trail did have some bridges, which captivated all three of the kids, lots of rocks to turn over with cool bugs underneath, a little creek which probably has running water after heavy rains, and the aroma of ponderosas (all fresh and sharp with the after scent of rain when we were there, as a cloudburst caught the area five minutes before we found the trailhead and parked). Rondel came prepared with a backpack full of small containers to catch insects or to store small treasures – but he ended up disliking the way it felt on his back, so he carried it in his hand the whole hike.
We also happened upon a prickly pear flush with ripe red fruits, and recklessly harvested enough to fill the empty front pocket of my hiking bag – reckless, because we had no gloves and had to spend several minutes pulling prickles out of everyone’s fingers, Aubade excepted (and she was the only one who wanted to drink the juice afterwards!)
While Butte Creek Trail was fairly short – we spent only a couple hours on it – we stumbled upon Granite Creek Park and stayed there for another few hours, eating lunch, playing on the playground, and exploring the wooded areas around the playground (I didn’t get any pictures, unfortunately, but it was a beautiful park – it reminded me of upstate New York, in a lot of ways). Rondel found SO MANY gigantic cicada exoskeletons, and I could only drag them away, in the end, with a promise of ice cream.
And ice cream we had, at Frozen Frannie’s in downtown Prescott, followed by a walk around the courtyard square investigating all the art and curio shops – one of the art galleries captivated the kids so much that even though Limerick was exhausted to the point of barely feeling up to walking around, he still kept commenting on and trying to examine all the different sculptures and paintings. I think we only made it out of that one by sheer force of will on my part, powered by my desire to get home before bedtime…
Including our stop at Sunset Point on the way home (around sunset!), it was by far the longest day trip I’ve done with the kids – we got home almost exactly 12 hours after we’d left that morning. Prescott was so new and beautiful and varied that none of us felt ready to leave, other than because we were getting tired, and I am definitely planning on finding other hiking opportunities near there for the future!
little thoughts 