Salome Jug

Friday night I went backpacking at a place a few hours from here called "The Jug" with a friend from our ward in Ahwatukee, Ty Woods. It is a slot canyon on Salome Creek located a couple hours outside of town. We left at 3pm and got to the trail head around 5:30, we were the only car at the trailhead. We made good time on our hike to the mouth of the canyon and got there around 6:30. We put on our swimming suits, grabbed our cameras in water proof gear and swam up through a few different calm pools to get to the bottom waterfall. The water was surprisingly warm. We made it back to our camp site right as it was getting real dark, set the tent up and had dinner. I woke up at 12:30 and took two 8 minute exposures under a full moon.We got up the next morning at 5:30 and hit the trail to the top of the canyon about 6:30. We spent about 4 hours in the canyon taking pictures, we saw other people for the first time at the top of the bottom falls. We took the 2 mile hike out in the mid day heat to find 15 or more cars at the trailhead, we were glad to have spent the majority of our time without seeing anyone. As Ty put it, this was probably in the top 5 hikes I have ever done, it was so unique and more interesting around every corner. The water was cool and clear. The rock was polished pink granite, with many interesting conglomerate rocks throughout the canyon. I could have spent a days in there with my camera.