Canyon Lake, Arizona.

Canyon Lake – This beautiful lake having surface area of 950 acres is a great tourist attraction and a popular recreation area for the people from Phoenix, Arizona.  While in Phoenix, this is one of the must visit places and just about 80+ kms away from the city to the east.  Our friend and colleague, Ravi took 3 of us Divya, Suresh and I I his Car and Gopal and Naga followed in another Car. The Journey along the magnificent Apache Trail had beautiful scenic views; we passed through historic Goldfield Ghost Town; even though we wished to visit this Ghost town we did not have enough time to spend with ghosts.

This is one of the four lakes created by the Mormon Flat Dam on the Salt River located north east of Phoenix, Which was built in year 1923-1925. Nestled in the heart of the Superstition Mountains lie spectacular Canyon Lake which is maintained and managed by United States Forest Service and several recreation amenities available here include hiking trails, camping, and boating.

One of the popular tourist attractions at the lake is relaxing Dolly steam boat cruise; a 1.5 hour minute-narrated nature cruise along the secluded inner waterways of this beautiful lake. So obviously we also chose to go on a cruise on double deck Dolly steam boat. This cruise goes exploring the rock formations, flora and fauna and if we are lucky we may also witness wildlife including Desert majestic desert big horn sheep, bald eagles and a host of other wildlife etc according to the boat captain, however we did not see any except a squirrel and eagle. The steamboat crews were very friendly and the captain told us so many cool facts about Canyon Lake and some witty jokes making everyone giggle. During the cruise, we were able to stand on either the front deck or the back deck of the ship and just look around at the scenery and enjoy it as some water scooter motorists wave from waters as they zip past the cruise. We can also see lot of water sports enthusiast enjoying the waters on kayaks, small motor powered boats, water scooters etc.

It was a nice day spent for us and never been on a nature cruise like this other than entertainment cruises at Goa. We had light snacks and cool drinks on-board while enjoying the cruise. After the cruise we took life-saving great ‘Curd rise’ prepared by Naga and ‘Pongal’ by Ravi from the Car boot to the cool shades of trees near the lake for our lunch. After the Lunch, Naga and I went for a Dip in the green looking cool water and enjoyed sometime in water while rest of the group chit chatted under the tree. This was Sunday and just day before (Saturday) we had been on hiking at Tonto natural bridge, so it was full of trips on weekend, so it was time for us to bundle ourselves and go back to our barracks and relax and prepare our mind for the grinding office hours that’s going to follow very next day through another week, so it ended our joyful Canyon lake trip and Cruise.

Explore the Canyon lake on Google Map:

The Dolly steam boat is not a true steamboat as the name suggests and its paddle wheel is just for show only. It has a motorized propeller just like any other boat and the paddle wheel drops in to the water and turns by virtue of the motion of the boat through the water.