A ridge I haven't climbed for a while

I've been feeling kind of puny all week. I had a sore throat Wednesday evening and felt drained of energy. I was seriously considering calling in sick on Thursday. If I was coming down with the virus formerly knows as swine flu, I didn't want to spread it around at work. I didn't feel any worse Thursday morning, so I went on to work. By late afternoon, I felt like I needed to go for a hike. As I drove out to Bulldog Canyon, though, I kept thinking about how drained I felt and that I should probably be at home resting, saving my energy to fight whatever was attacking. I decided to get out and take a few pictures and see how I felt. There were probably too many gnats to hike, anyway.

There's a ridge in Bulldog Canyon OHV area that I spent several months trying to figure out how I could get on top of. I made several attempts but was stopped when it got too steep or I was blocked by a cliff or the only route I could take would violate one of my hiking-alone rules. Hmm, maybe I should call them "old man rules". I mean, whether you are hiking alone or with a group, you don't want to fall of a cliff. To paraphrase a not-so-old saying, "There's old hikers and there's bold hikers, but there's no old bold hikers". But I digress.

I did finally get to the top of that ridge (using Lindsey's suggestion of starting out at the NW end). It wasn't easy, though. It was steep and there were lots of obstacles and I think it was about 106 that day. On Thursday, though, as I drove toward the ridge, I picked a place to climb. I couldn't see how I would reach my goal once I got on top of the ridge, but I figured I would solve that problem when and if I got to it. As I started towards the ridge I felt strong and tireless. Hah! I wasn't sick. I just needed to get out in the desert.

My goal is to be up there where those saguaros are.

The gnats were as bad as I was afraid they would be. I've learned how to swat them without hurting myself, though. Several times, I wiped out about 10 of them with one swat. There was always a sizable cloud of them around me, though. Being this close to the ridge, the breeze was blocked, which is not good during gnat season. Because of the gnats, I didn't want to stop and take many pictures on the way up. These days I take mostly exposure bracketed pictures to create HDR images, which means I have to stand very still for about 3 seconds. Try doing that with gnats crawling in your ears and up your nose.

Once on top, I saw a route to the saguaros on the other side of the ridge.

It was surprisingly easy to get to the top of the ridge. I think my new boots (Danner Pronghorns) help a lot. They are extremely light, probably the lightest shoes I own. When I walk on concrete, they feel like soft cushions under my feet, but when I step on pointy rocks, they provide an unyielding barrier that protects my feet. I feel like I can walk over anything. Well, maybe not molten lava, but lots of stuff that gave me problems before. They seem to have a tiny bit less traction than the cheap boots I'm used to wearing. Because of that, I've changed the way I walk down very steep slopes. I kind of go sideways. Less likely to hurt my tailbone if I fall (hope I don't break a wrist, though).

Anyway, I got to the ridge pretty quickly, which is good since the sun was getting low. I wanted to stay up there for a while, but I needed to find my way down while there was still some light.

The saguaros viewed from on top of the ridge.

The setting sun makes everything red.

The late afternoon sun really makes everything red in the pictures. I probably need to take those pictures in RAW mode so I can play with the white balance.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

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