Photos by Nate Parmentier
Arizona is vast. It takes approximately seven hours to drive to the border of Utah all the way south to Mexico (approximately 464 miles longitudinal), and almost the same amount of time from New Mexico to California, east to west (approximately 396 miles latitudinal). Nate and I have found so much varied terrain to explore, and standup paddled 39 different places within our state borders over the years. We still have plenty to go.
A beautiful memory was Big Lake in Northern Arizona. It is one of the White Mountains’ best fishing lakes at an elevation of 9,000 feet. Primary fish species here include rainbow, brook and cutthroat trout, with an occasional brown trout.
When we left the Valley of the Sun around Phoenix, it was 112° on a hot July morning, only to get to our destination up north to enjoy the cool and cloudy 70°. It is worth the 4 and a half hour drive! It started to rain a little, which we appreciate along with cool temperatures, being we happily live in the warm sunshine over 300 days per year. Big Lake is a very scenic area, forested with ponderosa pine, douglas fir, spruce and aspen interspersed.
Our Hobie SUP crew was myself on a yellow Apex 4R, Nate on his 14 foot Apex, Joe on his Classic Elite, and Matt on his blue Venture. We headed out for a paddle the following day when there was a little break in the clouds. We stayed at very convenient lakefront campsites and had a pleasing view from the lake of 11,409 feet Mount Baldy. (The summit of Mount Baldy is within the Fort Apache Indian Reservation and is off-limits to hikers without permission. Good for me to know, as I always enjoy an invigorating hike on our SUP trips.) We were not on the water more than a half hour before we started seeing a bright lightning show in the distance – we paddled for shore as the wind started kicking up and rain started pouring.
Normally, in the Valley, we hear plentiful packs of coyotes at night excitingly gathering, as dogs do when they’re excited to be around each other. But the first night at Big Lake we heard something a bit more eerie then coyotes. It was the sound of Mexican grey wolves! “Cool!” the wildlife lover in me thought. We did not get to see them, but perhaps next adventure we can spot some unusual wildlife while paddling by. It’s always a big adventure for the Parmentiers and friends, we love it that way!
