The Bob Bear Trail at Fossil Creek in Strawberry, Arizona is my favorite hike to date. Not only is it insanely beautiful, but the hike is so rewarding.

This hike is a total of 8.75 miles down and back, which equates to about 4.37 miles to the waterfall and 4.37 miles back up to the parking lot! This hike should definitely be on your bucket list if it isn’t already!

In this blog, I’m going to share everything you need to know before hiking to the waterfall at Fossil Creek. This includes information about the permit, the difficulty of the hike, and what to prepare for!

At a Glance:

Tips to know before you go!
The Drive to Strawberry, Arizona
Parking for the Bob Bear Trail
The Hike to Fossil Creek
The Emerald Waterfall and La Croix Cave

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Know Before You Go!

This was the first hike that I’ve went on that I’ve actually planned out / prepared for. Normally, the adventures I go on happen very last minute. Just check out my blog post for the Salt River!

For this hike, you have to plan it out months in advance, there’s no deciding the day-of that you want to hike it. You need to obtain a permit 1 month prior in order to hike the Bob Bear Trail between April 1st and October 1st.

You can apply for a permit here. From October 2nd through March 31st, you do not need a permit. Fossil Springs uses the permit system in order to moderate the traffic. Since we went during the middle of COVID in August of 2020, the capacity was halved, but there were still a decent amount of people there. I personally wouldn’t want to go on a day where it’s at full capacity because I feel like there wouldn’t be room to have my own space!

Since this hike was nearly 9 miles long, I packed many snacks, a gallon of water, and a lunch that I could to have along the way. I’d never hiked more than 3 miles at once before so I wasn’t entirely sure how to prepare myself, but Lacy gave me some great tips!

For more detailed information about this hike, check out Lacy’s post on Wildjoy.

The Drive to Strawberry, Arizona

The morning of, I woke up at 4:45 am. That is EARLYYYYY if you ask me. Lacy and Ian were to be at my apartment by 5:30, so I had to get moving! For (my first) breakfast, I believe I had some yogurt, frozen fruit, and granola. While eating my breakfast, I packed my bag for our hike.

We met up with our two friends Hannah and Dani before we continued on our way to the trail. Hannah and I were both interns for Lacy at Wildjoy over the summer (this was our first time meeting in person!!) and Dani is a friend of Lacy’s from TikTok! They hopped in our car and we headed for Strawberry, Arizona!

Our goal was to arrive at the trailhead by 8am since it gets insanely hot as the day goes on, and this benefited us since a storm was rolling in as we finished the hike.

When we reached the adorable town of Strawberry, we passed a small building with a sign that was twice its size advertising pies. It was at that moment that all five of us knew we NEEDED to have pie after our hike. The thought of pie literally carried our tired asses through this hike.

Parking for the Bob Bear Trail

With our parking permit, the location of the trailhead was at 34.407, -111.568, but with different parking permits you may start at different locations.

Hiking the Bob Bear Trail to Fossil Creek

We arrived to Fossil Creek around 8am and began our journey towards the waterfall!

The first half of the nearly 9 mile hike is the easiest because it’s all down hill. Don’t let this fool you, the way back up is killer!

It took us just under 2 hours to hike down, and a little over 2 hours to hike back up. This balanced out to a total of 4 hours hiking the Bob Bear Trail.

At one point during the hike down to the waterfall, we took the wrong path but we didn’t even realize until our way back up! We still made it there and back safely, just took some alternate routes :)

The Emerald Waterfall and La Croix Cave

When we reached the waterfall, I was in complete awe. I had no clue that Arizona had WATERFALLS like what?! I literally thought Arizona was a complete desert.

This waterfall was like no other waterfall I’d seen. It had crystal clear emerald greenish-blue water where you could see right to the bottom and it had little caves underneath that you could explore. It also had a section to it known as the “Toilet Bowl” where the water circled down into the rest of the stream. We didn’t jump into the Toilet Bowl because it looked super dangerous.

We had worked up quite the sweat on our way down, so immediately we dropped our bags and jumped in! The water felt chilly at first but we warmed up quickly.

There was a small cave under the waterfall that we swam towards, and when we were inside, it reminded me of the cave from the show H20, Just Add Water! We were 100% living out our mermaid fantasy here. Afterwards, we watched some people jump into the water and then explored further down the stream.

As I mentioned earlier, I had never hiked more than three miles at once before – and three miles is being generous. I hadn’t really prepared myself for this hike by going on other hikes, but somehow I did really well. At the end, I felt as if I had enough energy to do it again!

Our Manifestation of Pie

On the drive back, Hannah and Dani were passed out next to me in the back of Lacy’s car while Lacy, Ian and I had our eyes peeled for the pie shop. Somehow, we were unable to find it again! We even tried looking it up on Apple Maps but nothing showed up. We were a bit disappointed to say the least – we had been manifesting it for the past 5 or so hours! We settled on getting food from Five Guys, and I had never been before so this was a good substitute for me.

Over all, this is my favorite hike I’ve been on! Even though the hike back up is strenuous, especially in the heat, it is so worth it. I can’t wait for my next adventure with Lacy and the Wildjoy crew!

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Have you ever been to a waterfall in Arizona? Which ones are you favorite?