Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area

There was an article in the paper last week about a retired teacher who leads geology hikes in the Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area once a month. I wanted to learn something about rocks, so this morning I went on that hike.

Tom McGuire, our guide for the hike.

The hike started at 9, and I quickly remembered why I don't like to go hiking in the morning. There's something distressing about hiking in the heat when it keeps getting hotter. It wasn't real hot, though. It probably didn't even get up to 90 before we finished the hike 2 hours later. The air was very still, though.

Elephant Mountain. I took half of my pictures before the hike even started.

There are some nice mountains in the area, but it was the wrong time of day to be getting pictures of them.

I didn't take a lot of pictures on the hike because the sun was too high and because every time I saw I picture I wanted to take, there was somebody standing in it. There were about 100 people on that hike. Some looked like they were accustomed to hiking in the desert and some looked like this might be their first time off the pavement. A lot of them had wooden hiking sticks. I carry one, too, if I'm going on a long or steep hike. Didn't need one today. This wasn't a comfortable hike for me, though. It was mostly level and we moved slowly. Kind of like ambling through a shopping mall with a window shopper, which makes my hips hurt for some reason. The last few hundred feet back to the parking lot were uphill. Oh, that felt good!

Tom is a good speaker and is very knowledgeable. He would stop to talk about something every now and then. In between stops people would ask him questions and I tried to walk close by to listen in. Consequently, I was usually in the middle of the crowd. Not a good place to be for getting pictures. Anyway, click below to see all of them (pictures, that is).

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