Tonto Creek, Hell's Gate to Gisela

I was lucky enough to be asked to fill in for a colleague who couldn't make this trip. Basically an 11 mile hike followed by three days of non-technical canyoneering. The time on the creek was mostly spent rock hopping or swimming, with some swims being a couple hundred yards in length at least. The goal was to sample the fish populations in the creek as well as look for gartersnakes.

After shuttling vehicles around to Gisela, we arrived at the Hell's gate trail head near Payson and departed for what was around an 11 mile hike down to Hell's Gate on Tonto Creek where we would camp for the night. Payson is right around 5,000 feet and it was nice and cool in the morning but soon warmed up as we continued to the creek.

Had to go with a different set up then I use for most backpacking trips. Dry bag strapped to a frame.

Hell's Gate in the distance

 And Hell's Gate from Tonto Creek

Each night we would set our traps and put out a gill net for a couple hours to sample the fish community. Primarily we were interested in the Chub species which were abundant throughout most of the creek except for the far downstream sections. While we set out traps for them, they readily took dry flies too.

Checking the gill net.

Camped at Hell's Gate the first night

For the rest of the trip we worked our way down stream about 7-8 kms a day, set out traps in the evening, explored side canyons looking for gartersnakes, camped, checked and pulled traps then continued down stream further in the morning.

Early on in the trip, the mornings were shady and the breeze was chilling when we had to get wet. As the day grew hotter it stopped being an issue. Later in the trip, as we dropped in elevation, we rarely avoided getting wet since the days were hovering around 100 degrees and the rocks became searing hot
 

Trying not to drop the phone in the water.

We didn't camp here, but maybe we should have. I've paid money for worse places.

Bill Burger's photos:

Warming up on the hot rocks.

Watching a bear work it's way up the cliffs

This was a tributary we went up looking for gartersnakes. This keeper pot was as far as we could survey.

This was the last real obstacle. It was too shallow to jump in so we lowered our packs then down climbed. This was also an effective natural fish barrier keeping small-mouth bass from colonizing upstream and protecting the upstream Chub populations from predation.

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Fun trip, might have to do it again next year on my own time.