Remembering Canyon Lake- May 2018

On May 6, 2018, we drove to Canyon Lake near the Apache Trail and Tortilla Flat. It was an extremely busy lake! But it was really neat. It's just tucked away in the mountains. The road to it is skinny and winding- and the bridges are only one lane!

We wanted to kayak, but the only parking we could get was way far, so it was going to be too difficult to carry our kayaks for such a long distance. We decided to keep driving. We drove through the Superstition Mountains and took in the cool scenery. Neither of us had visited this area before.

We headed to Tortilla Flat. This place is teensy. There's a campground, a country store, a saloon/restaurant and a mercantile. Tortilla Flat was an old stagecoach stop in the early 1900s.

We stopped in the country store and I tried prickly pear gelato. It was nice and creamy! We browsed the little mercantile, which is essentially a gift shop.

We headed back to the lake, and quite a few people had cleared out by that time so we got to go and enjoy it. We had an awesome time kayaking! There was this narrow bit of the lake that we paddled through. There were some kids there cliff jumping. I was so nervous for them, but it seemed like they were having a good time.

When we got to the end of the lake, we got out of the kayaks to explore a bit. That area seemed like a really cool place to camp! It'd be so fun to camp somewhere only accessible by small boat.

We paddled over to edge of the no wake zone, so we could go under the bridge, and check out some nifty caverns.

After we were done in the water, we headed back to Tortilla Flat for dinner at the saloon. My mom had recommended that we go. She told me that she spent a lot of time there back in the day.

We'd love to go back and drive more of the Apache Trail, and experience the lake when it's a little less crowded.