Weekend in Payson


The entire srishti gang went to Payson this weekend. Dunno where exactly it is located, but it's just three hours from Phoenix and is a really cool place with real trees instead of the cacti I've so gotten used to. Pine trees and a beautiful lake (Woods Canyon Lake) - so much like Kodaikanal where we had one of our really cool class trips when I was an engineering undergrad.

The pic on the left was taken on some trail in Payson. Among the guys, we were the last ones to finish the trail as we took photo breaks almost after every rock we climbed. Francis (first from left) and Giby got in touch with their inner apes and left us huffing and puffing and crawling over the rocks behind them.

Das(extreme right) was on extra caffeine the whole night and wouldn't let anyone sleep. All the tents got wet in the rain and just when we managed to fall asleep, Das decided that he couldn't take Holly's snoring any longer and woke everyone else. He wanted to hunt elks in the lake at 3 in the morning (Elks in the lake?)Then he decided to become the official peeing guide for all the tents and led guys to his chosen tree for the unspeakable.

We had an incredible game of treasure hunt in the woods the next day. Gireesh and Holly had decided on locations where they placed envelopes with clues all over the woods. Each team had one handheld GPS with which to follow the trail. The handhelds only had the treasure locations and no map. But all you had to do was pick a location and choose "Go To" and it would plot a straight line course and guide you throughout. It worked well for all the teams, but team alpha(ahem.. yeah, mine) managed to screw up after the second location and hiked for a mile or two before returning to the campsite where needless to say all the other teams were waiting to boo.