Always something interesting...

A few months ago I was complaining about how soft the bottoms of my boots were and how I could feel every little rock through them, and that made my feet hurt. So I bought the ones with the stiffest soles that I could find at Big 5. They were great, for a while. On last weekend's hike it felt like I would be able to read braille through those shoes. They softened up for some reason. So I decided I was going to have to spend some real money on some hiking shoes. I got some Danner Pronghorns. My choice of a hiking place today was partly to try out the boots.

New boots. Hopefully they won't turn to mush after a few weeks.

I also wanted to go someplace I hadn't been before. I wound up parked on the side of the road east of Tortilla Flat. I had been there once before (got a video of a tarantula then), but I didn't go very far from the truck. Today I wanted to see if I could get to the other side of the canyon that's south of the road. If not, maybe I could at least get some pictures from inside the canyon.

Steep-sided canyon.

I never even got to the bottom of the canyon, though. I found a route most of the way down, but the closer I got to the bottom, the harder it got to find a way around parts that were too steep. Then there was the possibility, with all that meandering back and forth, that I might forget the route back up. That wouldn't have been a real big problem today, though. I could see a dirt road (looks like it was the main road many many years ago) that I could follow back to Apache Trail.

All that is left of the old road.

I picked a good test for the boots. It was very rocky. I discovered a disadvantage to boots that don't wrap around the rocks you step on. When I stepped on rocks the size of large marbles that were on solid rock, they (and my foot) rolled away. I stayed extra far away from most cliff edges today. I also found out that my ankles are still sore from last weekend's hike, and going down steep inclines hurt. In fact, it was one of those days that I felt like my body was on the verge of falling apart, so I didn't push it.

As I was still on the way down towards the canyon floor, I ran across a plant that I haven't seen since the spring of 2005; desert broomrape. It was like running into an old acquaintance. I saw a lot of it in 2005, but none since then. It seemed like such a strange plant. I had never seen anything like it before. It was pretty, too. It took a few weeks back then, but I finally tracked down what it was. I sent a couple of pictures to a guy that has a web page on parasitic plants because he didn't have any good pictures of this one (orobanche cooperi), and he put my pictures on his web site. I felt famous. I've been looking for more plants like that since then, but haven't found any (unless you count mistletoe).

Orobanche Cooperi, aka desert broomrape

Hedgehog cactus flowers.

Ocotillo flowers.

A stick.

It was only 4:30 when I got back to the truck. I didn't want to drive back through Tortilla Flat during rush hour (small joke), so I decided to continue east for a little ways. There are some scenic canyons at the rest stop near Fish Creek hill and I have never been very satisfied with the pictures I've gotten of them, so I thought I'd see what I could do with Photomatix.

I was wandering along the trail out to the furtherest observation point when some people asked me of I could see the bighorn sheep. Wow, I've wanted to see some of those for years! They kept trying to tell me (very patiently) where to look but it wasn't until I got up next to them and followed where they were pointing that I saw the sheep. There were 10 or 12 of them perched on a cliff. A couple of them walked down and then back up the cliff face. It looked vertical from our perspective, but they moved like it was flat ground.

Bighorn sheep on a cliff.

Click below to see all of the pictures. I didn't crop any of the pictures of the sheep, so remember to click on the "magnify" button to get a good view of them.

2009_03_28