Near Canyon Lake, again

This morning I was thinking about how, when I drive by the lake, I mostly look at the lake and not in the other direction. I suppose one reason for that is that when you look away from the lake, you are frequently looking at a rock wall. Anyway, I decided to go explore what I seldom look at. Also, I figured that if I wanted to get some pictures of the lake, the sun would be behind me.

First, though, let me backtrack a little. When Kyle and I were on our way back from Piestewa Peak yesterday, I pointed out how the clouds to the north and east reminded me of monsoon clouds. Monsoon season isn't for another 4 months, though. There were more clouds today, and they looked even more like monsoon clouds. There were some big clouds over the Superstitions, and I could see a little rain far to the north and east. I was glad I was headed towards Canyon Lake; I should have some nice clouds for my pictures.

I stopped near Goldfield Ghost Town to get some pictures of the Supes on the way out there. I haven't done that for a while.

The Supes with puffy clouds!

As I started uphill, I wondered if the humidity would be high enough to be bothersome, but it didn't seem to be. Either that, or I was moving too slow to work up much of a sweat. It seemed to take a long time to get high enough that pictures of the lake would not be dominated by power lines.

I saw a lot of lizards. That made me a little nervous. If there are lots of lizards out, there are probably lots of snakes out, too. Since I was off-trail, I sometimes had to go through plants that hid the ground. Well, if I passed by any rattlers, they ignored me.

This lizard came out of hiding to pose for a picture.

There were some nice clouds around. I took some pictures just to get the clouds.

There were a lot of flowers. I finally got a picture of globe mallow with lots of flowers that wasn't next to a road.

I found a stone arch. I probably pass by stuff like this (and rattle snakes) all the time without seeing them because I'm so intent on watching where I'm going.

Finally, a good use for stereo images.

I took a slightly different route down than up. I was grumbling about all the plants I was having to push through when I spotted some pretty pink flowers. Well, all the catclaw scratches might be worth it. I had to crawl under a tree to get to a spot where I could get decent pictures. It turns out that the flowers are on a very strange (to me, anyway) plant. Look at the leaves.

The stem goes through the center of the leaves.

I saw a plant like that once before, up on top of the Superstitions. I sure would like to know what it is.

I continued pushing through bushes and weeds and bleeding from catclaw acacia scratches and not too much further down that wash I spotted another plant with stems through the center of it's leaves.

One leaf per stem, I think.

The clouds were great. I like how they make the pictures look and when I got to the top of the ridge I was climbing, I had some shade and a nice breeze to cool me off.

Canyon_Lake_2009_03_14