The Wave Cave

A new trail has appeared in the Superstition Wilderness.  It goes to the cave pictured above.  I think you can figure out how it got its name.

I'm pretty sure there wasn't a trail up there when I first started hiking in that area about 12 or 14 years ago.  The Wave Cave trail splits off of the Carney Springs trail.  I was on the Wave Cave trail 2 or 3 years ago.  I didn't follow it up to the cave back then because I didn't know it went up there and it wasn't an official trail then so there wasn't any signage.

The Wave Cave is in the canyon just to the right of the Three Sisters.  I think the official trail is supposed to start at the Lost Goldmine trailhead on Peralta Road.  I parked in a small lot before the Lost Goldmine trailhead that avoids a lot of pointless ups and downs and twists and turns before you get to the trail going up to the Wave Cave.  Always capitalizing "Wave Cave" is making me feel a little like Trump (read his tweets).  I have this strange urge to build a wall.

My truck is parked behind that black SUV in the small lot at the intersection of the 2 "roads".  The hike was less than 4 miles and about 800 feet of climbing.  It gets pretty steep towards the end.  My GPS tracker says it's a 1000 foot climb but it also says that I was zipping around the mountain at 160mph when I was standing in the cave.  Those things just don't work in caves.

Harvester Ant Mystery

Cottony stuff around a Harvester Ant mound
After 15 years I still come across stuff in the desert that I've never seen before. A couple of weeks ago I saw what looked like the stuffing out of a child's stuffed toy. I was close to a road, so that seemed like a reasonable explanation. I saw a couple more patches of the cottony stuff further from the road, though, and also noticed that it was just around Harvester ant mounds. I also noticed some ants carrying the stuff. I couldn't figure out where it came from, though. Were the ants doing their spring cleaning and this was garbage that had collected in the mounds all winter?

Scenic area

I pondered the possibilities as I wandered around but couldn't come up with any reasonable explanation.  I was about to find out what it was, though.

Closeup of agave flowers on a stalk that fell over.

The sun had set by the time I returned to the truck.  I got a little too close to an ocotillo and it caught my sleeve.  I kept walking and when the ocotillo finally snapped free, I was showered with seeds.  The seeds are wrapped in a thin white skin and have a fibrous, cottony layer between the skin and the seed itself.  The ants had been gathering the seeds (which is what Harvester ants do) and stripping off and discarding the inedible fibers around the seed.