Our first week (Jan 4-10/2015) has been nothing short of awesome. We had a couple good hikes and found some great jeep trails. The town of Roosevelt flourished in the early 1900's due to the construction of the Roosevelt Dam. About all that's left of Roosevelt is a forest service office, a marina and a few homes. We hiked a trail that went past this cemetery. Buried here are Roosevelt residents from the early 1900's. Wooden crosses, piles of stone and a few monuments mark the graves. Lake Roosevelt created from the Roosevelt Dam is a big attraction is this area. Fishing, boating, camping and tons of trails, this is mostly national forest land so there's lots of area to explore. We're only about 15 miles from Lake Roosevelt.     

Too close to a prickly pear cactus.

I never tire of saguaros, they're majestic. Lake Roosevelt in the background. 

Crossing Tonto Creek.

 Tonto Creek runs thru this little burb of Punkin Center. We're careful of these crossings...watched a few others go thru before we did so we knew how deep and best path to take. The creek is running from the snow melt up in the high country, there was a foot of snow in Payson on New Year's Eve. There are  several houses and people living on the back side of the creek, the school and businesses on what I'd call the front side. There is no bridge, when the creek is running full, it floods, the school closes and they call it a creek day. (No snow days here.) Locals tell us they've been trying to get a bridge built for years.

HIKING - Salome Wilderness Area in the Tonto National Forest. Beautiful hike into a very deep canyon. Steep canyon walls, waterfalls and bamboo growing in some of the pools. People rappel some of these canyon walls to get to pristine pools of water. Not us. The hike out was strenuous, about 3 mi. up hill, we were tired. Going down was a lot easier!!

On our way out of the Salome Area, evening setting in, Roosevelt Lake in background. It's a 4-wheel drive road to get to the trail head.