Fossil Creek ATV Ride

by Toni Vernetti

(Panasonic Lumic DMC-FZ8)

Today we packed up the quad, hijacked our friends, and headed out to Fossil Creek then farther down to the Verde River.

To get to the starting point of this quad ride follow Hwy 87 north out of Payson. When you get to Pine hang a left on Hardscrabble road. Follow Hardscrabble road west until you go from paved road to dirt road. Once you hit dirt road and are getting out of the residential area begin to look for a pull off to your left. This is where we offloaded our quads and began our trip but there are plenty of other camping spots along the way where you can also offload.

The trip from the starting point on Hardscrabble Road (FR 428) to the Verde River was approximately 23 miles.

We started by following FR 428 west. The area in here was very beautiful with tall pines and small pockets of snow still left on the ground. In several places small creeks were running with snowmelt.

As we were nearing the end of the 428 road we had to cross Strawberry Creek. Of course, it to was up because of all the snowmelt in the area. The water was deep enough to come up over the footrests on the quads.

After crossing Strawberry Creek we continued to the junction of FR 428 and FR 708. At the junction we turned left and followed FR 708 west.

Note: From here on out the road descends until you reach the Verde River.

On FR 708 we pulled off the road where there were concrete barriers set up to keep people from driving off the road into a very steep canyon. The canyon was beautiful but looked extremely dangerous. Down below could be seen remnants of cars and even a motorcycle that had more than likely been dumped off the edge. The letters R.I.P. had been spray painted on the barriers with someone's name below so I'm assuming that someone had perished there before. We pulled off and got a few pictures here.

We continued to follow FR 708. Near the Irving Power Plant the road began to follow Fossil Creek. With all the snowmelt the creek was running pretty swiftly causing several waterfalls over big boulders.

We continued on the 708 and stopped at the bridge that crosses Fossil Creek. What a beautiful site and the sound of the rushing water was just incredible! The next shots were taken from under the bridge.

At the junction of FR 708 and FR502 we turned left onto the 502 and followed it all the way down into the Verde River near the Child's Power Plant. I tried to get pictures here but the river was just too wide and swollen and there were way too many sycamore trees in the way to get a good shot.

We found a good spot in a campground here to sit and have our lunch. I did get a couple of pretty good shots of some barrel cactus here.

After lunch we backtracked all the way back to the vehicles.

Today was a wonderful day. The weather was a little chilly in the pines and pretty warm down by the river. It was a perfect weather day for a quad ride.