This beautiful canyon hike is an easy five miles roundtrip, and though popular, is less crowded than the West Fork Trail in nearby Oak Creek Canyon. This trail is gentle and wide. For the first mile it overlooks the Enchantment Resort – nice, but not nearly as enchanting as the canyon itself. The trail winds along the east face of the canyon, hugging the towering ruin dotted red cliffs skirting the resort property. At about 0.85 miles you will see a path going off to your right. This leads uphill to Indian ruins in two caves, and is well worth a detour. It takes a bit of scrambling and climbing to get up to the ruins, but even if you don’t climb to them, it is worth going over to the face of the cliff where they are located for a look. This is a detour of about 0.25 miles each way.

At a mile we crossed a shallow wash. At about 3 miles, the trail pinches down suddenly as the canyon narrows. This was a good stopping place for those who weren’t interested in going all the way in. However, some bushwhacked another quarter mile and saw the head of Boynton, which is a box canyon against the side of Secret Mountain. The streambed forks here. After taking the right fork and we soon saw a primitive path which is almost a tunnel through lush growth at stream level. We returned the way we came.