Hike to Poland Creek near Phoenix, Arizona.

It's a pretty drive (and long) to get here, but once you start hiking off the FR259 road, the solitude quickly surrounds you. The trail drops 1000 ft into the canyon home of Poland Creek. Within the first few hundred yards, you will pass a few signs and a trail registration. The signs tell you that you are on the Algonquin Trail. The trail doesn't appear to get much use, but is easy to follow. We stumbled upon a happy sleeping rattlesnake who was napping right in the middle of the trail. Since there was no way around him, we had to ask him politely to move to another bed, which he did, but not without letting us know (via his rattle) that he wasn't happy about it.

After walking down about 1.2 miles, the trail crosses Poland Creek. The trail continues up Horsethief Canyon and deeper into the Bradshaw mountains, but we left the trail here and headed downstream. Here the hiking turns to boulder hopping. During the spring, you can find pool after pool here, all looking inviting for a swim. We found what we thought was a nice swimming hole here and were about to dive in when we noticed a large bee hive in the tree overlooking the pool. We quickly relocated. Not to worry, there were plenty of pools to choose from.

After a lunch and a refreshing swim, we headed back up the 1000 ft climb to the car.