Art's Desert Exploration Blog

Yet another ridge in Bulldog Canyon

2012-02-05T11:57:00.000-07:00

I wanted to see something new yesterday, but I didn't want to drive a long way to see it. I went to Bulldog Canyon and started down a wash I've been down a couple of times before, and then headed up a ridge. It's one of the places along there that I'm planning to explore some day.

I went up there, sort of. There's not much for scale, so this doesn't look like much.

I went up one of those bare rock ridges out there. If you can find spots that aren't too steep, they are easy to walk up because they aren't covered with loose rocks. On the other hand, they can be covered with marble sized pebbles that roll under the hard soles of my hiking boots. Progress can be slow on slopes with those pebbles. That was OK, though. I had donated blood in the morning and seemed to be getting out of breath more quickly than usual.

You can't see all this structural detail from down in the wash. It just looks like a solid orange wall.

There are several large, flattish spots up there. I decided to head for that notch towards the right. I want to see what's on the other side.

I crossed some sizable "flat" areas on the way up. It's nice to be on ground that you don't feel like you're about to roll down every now and then. Some of those areas were covered with thick grass about mid-calf high. It was tricky walking there because the softball size rocks were hidden. I almost twisted an ankle in one of those spots.

Treacherous meadow.

I took my time on the way up, partly because it was pretty up there and partly because I needed to catch my breath a lot. I also spent a lot of time studying optional routes to decide which way to go. You can't really tell which way will work out until you try it, though. I got lucky and made it to the top of the ridge on my first attempt.

I need to go in that direction, but I don't want to hike in the bottom of that draw. Vegetation will be too thick.

I steadily and easily made progress. It was a little strange not coming to any dead ends. The route I chose wasn't very steep, either.

Steadily gaining altitude.

I eventually got to a spot where I was going to have to go up a narrow channel that was full of plants. I expected to get ripped to shreds. There was no catclaw, though. I was able to get past all the other thorns without losing any blood.

The most formidable obstacle.

A nice view.

At the top of the channel, it looked like I was almost to the top of the ridge. It was tempting to run the last few feet and check out the view. There was a chance that I would get up there and see that I had a lot more climbing to do, though, so I took my time.

Almost there.

It turned out that I really was at the top. The view to the other side was not what I expected. It was very nice, though.

The other side. That's the Superstition Mountains back there.

I wasn't at the top of the tallest part of the ridge. I didn't see an easy way up there from where I was. I was getting a little tired of climbing, anyway.

The very top. No easy way up from here.

I hung around up there for a while taking pictures and enjoying the view. I started back in plenty of time to get to the truck before dark.

People sometimes ask why the rocks have a greenish tint. This is why. Lichens.

On the way down, I came across a hole in a flat part of the rock. It was about 2 feet in diameter, and very dark. I couldn't see into it because of the bright rock around it. It seemed bottomless, or maybe full of water. I zoomed in and took a picture. Turns out it was much shallower than it looked.

Bottomless pit?

Not bottomless, but it is wet.

It was a very pleasant hike. Click below to see all of the pictures.

BC_2012_02_04

Perfect weather

2012-01-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

Saturday was perfect weather for a hike. It was in the low 70's with a light breeze. There were almost no clouds. I headed for Bulldog Canyon. There was something I saw in one of my pictures from about a year ago that I wanted to check out. It looks like a large natural cave in the picture.

I was a little concerned about going in at the Wolverine Pass entrance. With the beautiful weather, I thought there would be lots of people there and the gate would be left open and there would be dirt bikes tearing up the desert. Strangely, there were just two vehicles in the parking lot (one with Alaska plates) and no people to be seen. There were no dirt bikes or ATV's tearing up the desert. It was like the twilight zone. I saw that a lot of "area closed" signs had been put up in all the places people shouldn't drive, but the people that drive out there never let stuff like that stop them. They just use the signs for target practice. Maybe a bunch of people got ticketed and that put a damper on things. Hope so.

I didn't see or hear anybody all the way out to where I parked. As I started my hike, I heard an engine that sounded an awful lot like a WWII plane. Turns out it was.

Something you see surprisingly often out here.

I headed up the wash where the "cave" should be. It was very rocky and, of course, full of thorny plants. They didn't get me too bad. They did get my lens cap, though. I didn't notice when it fell off, so I've got to head to the store for another one.

Rocky path.

Every time I get scratched, I think about the first guy to be given penicillin. He had a garden and was working in it one day and got scratched on the face by a rose bush thorn. The scratch got infected and he was going to die, so he got to be the first guinea pig for the new drug. He was making a miraculous recovery when they ran out of penicillin (a manufacturing process hadn't been worked out), so he died. When I first read that story, I thought that it must have been scary to live in a world in which a tiny scratch could kill you. It turns out that can still happen today, though, especially with all the drug resistant bugs that are evolving. That's one reason I no longer like to use antibacterial soap. I figure the bugs I've got are good ones that will keep the bad ones at bay, so I need to leave them alone. Yes, there is such a thing as being too clean. I'm getting way off-track, though.

It was pretty up there, but I didn't get any good pictures.

I never did find the cave. Maybe it was just a shadow.

The first Mexican Gold Poppy of the season.

As I was standing on a small ridge trying to decide whether to continue uphill (I was tired after having a cold and two weeks of slothfulness), I made a noise (long story) that bothered something on the other side of a nearby wash. I thought I saw something move under a tree, but it wouldn't move again. I took some pictures thinking I might be able to see what it was later. Turns out it was a javelina. I saw several of them running off later.

Javelina hiding under a tree.

I encountered four vehicles on the drive to the gate as I left. All were on the road. The gate was locked when I got to it. Strange happenings. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2012_01_28

Reflections

2012-01-25T20:10:00.000-07:00

We've been having unpleasant weekend weather lately; Gray, overcast skies but no rain. During the week, we have had beautiful blue skies. I didn't even go for a hike last weekend because it was so dreary looking. I felt like I had to get out in the sunshine after work yesterday, even if it was late in the day. I wanted some nice scenery, so I headed down to the Salt River.

The Salt River always looks picturesque.

The river is very low, as it usually is this time of year. There was one other vehicle parked out there, but I never saw the driver. I wandered around for about half an hour taking pictures.

There was no wind, so the water was very calm where it was deep enough.

I found out you can have some fun with reflections on the water.

Looks like a rocky sky.

A rock-shaped UFO?

This just looks strange.

Just a picture, but I like it.

I wonder if I can get somebody to get in the water and pose for some pictures. I can think of some strange pictures to create. Any volunteers? You don't have to be a swimsuit model; just be willing to stay mostly submerged in cold water (it's even icy cold in the summer) without shivering (that would make ripples) for several minutes at a time.

While you're thinking about that, I have some great news. Bulldog Canyon OHV permits are now available online. No more "I couldn't get off work before they closed" excuses. They have also put the Bulldog Canyon OHV Area information packet online, which has a new and much more readable map, though I don't think it's quite as good as my UNOFFICIAL map.

Click below to see all of the gloriously sunny pictures.

2012_01_24

Fish Creek Hill overlook

2012-01-18T19:37:00.001-07:00

I made my third attempt at finding an overlook of Fish Creek hill on Monday. I didn't have a lot of hope of being successful, since on previous attempts I had come across terrain that required rock climbing skills to cross. I had to try, though, because it was a good excuse to go explore someplace new.

I'm going to be going out along that ridge that can't be distinguished from the background in this picture. It was a very cloudy day.

There was a little bit of pointless ups and downs, but overall it was an easy walk. I saw a couple of cairns along the way, but it doesn't look like people go out there very often. Other than the two cairns, I couldn't tell that anyone else had been there.

The cliff I was at the top of drops at least 300 feet straight down. Such things make me nervous, so my first pictures are taken pretty far back from the edge.

Just can't make myself get close to the edge.

After a while, I managed to get a little closer to the edge. I also sat down and kept my backpack on, so a breeze wouldn't blow me over the edge. I sat there enjoying the view for a while. Several cars going up and down the hill were honking their horns. I guess they were hoping to hear an echo. Maybe they did. After a while, I got a little bit of sunshine.

Sunshine looks amazing after a couple of days of overcast skies.

I loaded my route into Google Earth. I usually do that just to look at it against the satellite view. I also viewed a profile of the track. It showed that I descended about 300 feet at the far end of the hike and stayed there for a while, which I did not do. I think that maybe the small cliff behind me was blocking some satellite signals, and the receiver was using signals that had bounced off surrounding cliffs. Mountains and tall buildings can really confuse GPS receivers.

That dip in the middle of the altitude profile is when I stopped to enjoy the view. The receiver must have been having some multipath issues then.

Click below to see all of the pictures. They get kind of repetitious. Near the end is a panorama that I uploaded full-size. You can zoom way in.

2012_01_16

Rye Creek, first shot

2012-01-06T21:20:00.000-07:00

I seem to be making a habit of going to all of these places at least twice. Well, that's a good thing. They're nice places. If I had to take pictures in a bar along Main in Apache Junction, I'd be sure to get all I needed on my first visit there. I suppose the bars could be very nice places, too, if you like that sort of thing. I guess I'm judging a book by it's cover, so to speak. But I'm getting way off track here.

The Last Roundup.

I used to visit cemeteries years ago. I was looking at the plants, and specifically rose bushes. I used to have some rose bushes and really enjoyed them, and I hear that you can find some really nice old rose bushes in cemeteries from which you can take cuttings, though I never did. I only raised hybrid teas. Anyway, I would always find myself reading headstones, and I would come across one for a child that died when just a few days or a few weeks old and that would make me very sad, so I quit visiting cemeteries.

Two of four.

"The Last Roundup" caught my eye as I drove by. "There's a bit of Arizona history", I thought. I stopped to look around. It seems to be used primarily by the Haught family. There were 4 similar tombstones close together. The Haught family lost 4 children in August of 1892. What a downer.

The upper part of Rye Creek was dry. I went to check out the lower part since I was out there and to scope out the road. There was water in the lower part, and evidence of lots of water recently. I wanted to see if I could find the stream gauge and ~~had~~ got to hike the last quarter mile or so.

This is a peaceful looking area.

I followed a side channel down to the creek. The stream gauge was right where the map showed it. It was obvious I was going to have to cross the creek if I was going to get more than two or three pictures.

Rye Creek stream gauge.

There was a wide, shallow part of the creek that was easy to cross. It wasn't long before I decided I needed to cross it again, but now is was narrow and deep, but not narrow enough to jump across (not with a backpack and camera, anyway). It wouldn't be fun hiking back to the truck with water in my boots, so I didn't want to step in deep water. Conveniently, there was a large pile of large rocks nearby. (That's funny, but unless you've spent some time in Arizona creeks you wouldn't know that that's like being in the Pacific Ocean and saying, "Conveniently, there was some salt water nearby". Which reminds me of one of the funniest things I ever heard but I don't want to get side-tracked again.) I selected a round, flattish rock and tossed it in the water on the far side of the channel to make a nice, stable landing spot. The near side was deeper, so I selected a large, rectangular rock. It was too heavy to toss. In fact, I felt myself sinking into the mud when I got close to the water with it, so as soon as I was close enough I dropped it. Mud and water splashed almost up to my waist. Well, I needed some hilarity and my feet were still dry so I was happy.

This made the soaking worthwhile.

I'm going to try to get back to Rye Creek when there's more water in it. In the mean time, click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_12_31

Another shot at crossing Willow Creek

2012-01-06T20:26:00.000-07:00

I really wanted to get to the other side of Willow Creek and see what that mysterious, dark, rectangular shape I saw up the other side was, so I was back out there on Monday. I took a route that started a fair distance from my destination, so it was a long walk.

I think it's a pretty area (except for the power lines).

It was slow and tedious most of the way. Lots of plants in the way, and very large rocks. For every 10 feet forward, I probably walked 15 feet from side to side. That's one of the drawbacks of hiking off-trail. I was enjoying the scenery, though, so I didn't mind.

In some places, walking was easy.

It didn't take too long to reach the side channel I wanted to check out. It was so pretty in Willow Creek, though, I decided to keep following the creek for a while. I soon got to a spot that looked very familiar. I had been there before, within the past few months. I could have saved a lot of walking if I had remembered that, but then I wouldn't have seen all the things that I did on this hike.

I've been here before.

I got to some more boring scenery before I had gone much further and decided to go back and check out the side channel. I only went a few feet up it before it became more climbing (with hands) than walking. Too risky for a solitary hiker. We may never know if I had seen a cave entrance up there or not.

Notice the green grass everywhere.

It seemed to take a long time to get back to the truck. I was trying to hurry and wasn't being as careful about going around plants. I pushed my way through a few bushes that turned out to be catclaw. Had to take a shower when I got home to wash the blood off. Maybe I should start wearing long sleeve denim shirts. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2012_01_02

West Fork of Sycamore Creek

2011-12-29T17:08:00.000-07:00

Remember the photo point pictures I was taking? Well, anyway, we don't take those pictures in the winter, but the Forest Service has something else to help me explore parts of Arizona that I haven't seen before. It involves getting pictures of creeks. This is a good time of year to do that because there is water in the creeks now. The first creek I visited is the West Fork of Sycamore Creek. It's across the Beeline Highway from Mt. Ord. I tried to go out there about a week ago but there had been a lot of rain and the road was very muddy. If I had driven down to the creek then, I probably would not have driven back up. So I went yesterday. It was a beautiful, sunny day.

Lots of water in the West Fork of Sycamore Creek.

There's a 4WD trail that follows the creek upstream. Most of it is in pretty good shape, except for one washed out spot near the beginning. I didn't want to try to get across that, so I parked and hiked. The road goes uphill for a while, and I got pretty warm going uphill in the sun. I was thinking about stopping to take my undershirt off. Then the road dipped back down to the creek in a narrow and apparently always shady canyon. It was very cool there. I was thinking about getting a flannel shirt out before I got back in the sunshine.

The creek in the shady canyon.

Water moves, so I made a video of it.

Now that I'm looking at the pictures I took, I keep thinking of others that I should have taken. I may have to go back soon. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_12_28

(Not) crossing Willow Creek

2011-12-27T12:16:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I was driving out to Canyon Lake and saw something interesting that I had never noticed before. I couldn't get a good look at it because I had to pay attention to the twisty road and I couldn't just stop because there was traffic behind me. Maybe it was just a shadow. Still, I wanted to check it out. I have been meaning to hike out to that area for a few years, anyway. I was just waiting for sufficient motivation.

I want to go in that direction. It's not as easy as it looks, though.

In order to get to where I wanted to go, I would have to cross Willow Creek. I've hiked up and down several stretches of Willow Creek. In a lot of places, it's impossible to get into or out of the creek bed without doing some serious rock climbing. I picked a bad spot to try to cross. There was no way I could get down to the creek. I just wandered around taking pictures for a while.

The scenery is very pretty, but I guess you have to be there. I don't seem to be able to take pictures of it.

It turns out that I've hiked in that area before. I saw some rocks that I recognized. Speaking of rocks, there are a few places out there that have black rocks scattered around on lighter colored rocks. I always thought that maybe people had done that. I looked a little more closely this time, though, and some of those black rocks are on small pedestals left by erosion of the lighter rock around them. Some of those black rocks have been where they are now for probably hundreds of years. That's a little surprising considering all the beer cans I saw out there.

Scattered rocks. Some of these have been right where they are for hundreds of years.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_12_26

A scenic part of Bulldog Canyon OHV area

2011-12-24T20:08:00.000-07:00

I went back to a part of Bulldog Canyon in which I had hiked about a year ago. Interestingly, in the current (January) issue of Scientific American, Michael Shermer comes to the same conclusion as I did then regarding the computer intelligence singularity, i.e. it will always be a few more years away. I would suspect that he was reading my blog and stealing my ideas if it wasn't such an obvious conclusion. (Plus, I can't imagine contributors to Scientific American doing such things.) Anyway, I thought that was interesting. Now back to the hike.

I took my favorite picture of the outing while I was still driving to the "trailhead".

I've got a couple of weeks off of work and had all sorts of plans for places I was going to go. The time off started last Saturday (the 17th). I got out of bead early that morning, reached down to pick up my phone, and my lower back went *sproing*. I hate it when that happens. It's just as well, though. The next few days were gloomy and wet, so I wouldn't have done much hiking anyway.

This is a scenic walk down a nameless wash (intermittent stream). I'm guessing that I walked about 8 miles. Can't tell for sure because the PN-40 discarded part of my track, and it was a part where I should have had excellent satellite coverage. Well, I could figure it out, but I'm feeling pretty lazy today. I'll never count on this receiver for breadcrumbs, though. It felt like a long walk. My ankles are achy today.

I saw places I want to go explore on my way down the wash. Some day.

The last time I was down there, I took a lot of pictures of puddles. We've had a lot of rain recently, so there were even more puddles. I told myself that I had enough pictures of puddles, though, and I wasn't going to take pictures of any more puddles unless they just happened to be in a good spot and looked good. I wound up with a lot of pictures of puddles again, anyway.

I think I got a picture of this puddle the last time I was out here.

A year ago, I could see some evidence of vehicles having driven down the wash. According to the Forest Service map, they shouldn't be there. I parked at the end of the official road, which is indistinguishable from the non-road that continues to the north. In January, it looked like only a small number of vehicles had gone very far down the wash beyond the end of the road, and there hadn't been any there for at least a couple of weeks. This time, it looked like there had been heavy traffic along most of the wash and there had been multiple vehicles out there the same day I was there (though I didn't see them).

I "hurried" at the beginning of the hike because I wanted to get to the view of the cliff that I like so much while there was still sunshine, and I had gotten a late start (long story). It seemed to be further to that cliff than I remembered, but it was just as pretty.

My primary destination.

After getting more pictures of the cliff, I had enough charge in the camera battery and enough sunshine (or so I thought) to continue downstream. Along the way, I found a small natural cave in a canyon wall. It was pretty dark in there, but I made a movie. There were what looked like fresh tennis shoe prints in the dust on the floor of the cave, but water doesn't get in there unless there's a huge flood and it's probably difficult for wind to blow through there, too.

From one end to the other of a small cave. Surprisingly, the PN-40 did not choke to death while I was in there.

I went all the way to where the wash intersected another wash that is very popular with ATV and 4WD enthusiasts, but is also not an official road. From the cliff to the other wash was rough and slow-going. I noticed a few things about plants that grow in stream beds there, too. There are almost no cacti in stream beds. There are many types of plants there that have no thorns. Some have thorns, but you can brush bare skin against them without getting a scratch. Then there's catclaw acacia. It's thorns are curved, like cat's claws. It takes just the slightest touch, and the claw grabs you. If you move, more claws grab you. If you move more, they sink in and rip flesh, so you don't want to pull away from one because it will rip you to shreds. You have to move towards it to get unhooked, but that just allows more claws to make contact, and they aren't going to let go easily.

The harmless plants are scattered here and there. You could brush up against them if you wanted too, but you almost never have to. Even when you get to a choke point, where there is only one possible route through, there are rarely harmless plants there. Those special places seem to be reserved for catclaw acacia. So you're clambering over slippery rocks and trying to avoid falling in a puddle and you have to drop the last foot or two and guess what grabs you just as you start to drop. Every time. Riiiiip rip rip rip riiip rip. Usually, I try to ignore the results, unless the blood runs down to my fingertips. Then I try to keep from getting blood on my camera. What adds insult to injury is when pesky gnats move in to feast on the blood. Fortunately, there were no gnats this day. I often get home from hikes and pull catclaw thorns out of my arms as I shower. I guess the best thing that can be said about catclaw is that, once it's embedded in your flesh, it doesn't release chemicals that cause pain (the way rose thorns do).

Catclaw got my nose. Ouch.

The sun had set by the time I got back to the cliff that was my original destination. It was quickly getting too dark for pictures, so I didn't have to stop to take many more. I was getting tired, though. My legs ached. I concentrated on moving steadily ahead, without stumbling. I didn't want to look like easy pickings to a hungry cat. I had to squat down occasionally, though, for a short rest and to stretch the muscles that were aching. This is when I discovered an advantage to having hurt my back a few days earlier. I had to keep my back straight up and down. That meant that any time I needed something off the floor, I used only my legs. It's surprising how much stronger they had gotten from a few days of picking up newspapers, dropped items, and Emily like that. My legs never got tired of pushing me uphill on that hike.

I like the way some pictures taken in the dark turned out.

After a while, it got hard to see any detail in the bed of the wash. No moon. I could tell where water was, where sand was, and where solid rock was, but that was about it. The solid rock became dangerous to walk on, because I couldn't see the ripples in it, and I wound up stumbling a couple of times. I had to resort to using a flashlight. I used the one my younger sister gave me a few years ago. It's a single LED. Bright enough to see the texture, but not so bright as to destroy my night vision. It was perfect. I got to the truck about 150 yards after getting the flashlight out. Click below to see all of the pictures.

BC_2011_12_23

The waterfalls by Willow Creek

2011-12-14T18:11:00.001-07:00

Back in September, I had found a "dry waterfall". I imagined that it would look great with water pouring over it and said that I would have to go back some time when it's raining. Of course, hiking in the rain usually isn't much fun, so I wondered if I would ever really do that.

We've had a lot of rain the past week or so, and probably more than an inch from Monday to Tuesday. It was raining pretty hard as I drove home yesterday, but looked like it was starting to clear up by the time I got home. I decided that yesterday was probably the best opportunity I would have to see that waterfall for a long time, so I went.

Along the way, the sun came out and there was a beautiful rainbow in front of me. I wasn't planning to take any pictures of it (I had to get to the waterfalls before it got too dark), but it was a very unusual rainbow. It was a double rainbow, which isn't too unusual, but there was also a third vertical piece between the other two. I had never seen intersecting rainbows before and at first I thought that what I was seeing was impossible. I rolled down the window and blinked a few times, but it was still there, so I took some pictures. Turns out that what I saw can be caused by reflected sunlight. Usually the light producing such rainbows is reflected off a body of water. I think that in my case it might have been reflected off the wet streets. There are plenty of long, flat streets in this part of the valley that would be ideal for reflecting sunlight.

Another rare photograph of intersecting rainbows.

I was worried that the water might have already stopped flowing when I got out there. I couldn't see any water anywhere out there, and the desert does seem to soak up water fast. Along the path to the waterfall, though, I could hear water trickling through the stream to my left. As I started down the steep bank to Willow Creek, I could hear water rushing below. Lots of water. There was quite a bit in Willow Creek. Well, it looked like a lot to me. The most I've seen in there before is none.

Willow Creek

As I made the short video of Willow Creek above, I could hear water pouring over waterfalls to my left. I hurried over there and there were several waterfalls. It was better than I'd hoped.

Waterfalls on a Willow Creek tributary.

I never did get any good pictures of the first big drop. I haven't found a good vantage point to see it. Also, I didn't bring a tripod with me. That wasn't very smart. I wanted to take long exposures to get that soft effect with the water, but that's hard to do without a tripod. I also had to take long exposures because it was getting dark fast. Not only had the sun set, but clouds were moving in again. Shortly after I got back to the house, it was raining hard again. I had the perfect window in which to get these pictures and videos.

Woohoo!

Here you can see a little bit of the first big drop at the top.

I'm going to get some neutral density filters and carry a tripod with me in case it rains again some time. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_12_13

Byous Butte, and a bighorn sheep

2011-12-12T16:49:00.000-07:00

Somebody commented on one of my Panoramio pictures that what I called Byous Butte was actually Hackberry Butte. I checked my maps and was pretty sure I was right, but decided to go out there and check it out anyway. After all, I hadn't been there for a few months.

This is Byous Butte.

To make a short story even shorter, I'm right. I figured out where Hackberry Butte is, too. It's at the end of a ridge and doesn't really seem distinguishable from that ridge, so I'm not sure why it's named like it's something seperate.

Hackberry Butte, framed by large saguaros.

As I hiked around out there, the clouds kept getting thicker until it was too gloomy for nice pictures. I went back to the truck and drove slowly back to town. I had seen a lot of traffic during the day, and a truck went by in the other direction just before I rounded a corner and came upon a bighorn sheep standing right next to the road. I slammed on the brakes and watched as it hopped uphill next to the road, and then stopped. It stayed there while I snapped a few quick pictures. It didn't run away when I rolled the window down more. It didn't move as I tried to get more comfortable. (Try getting pictures through the passenger window of something that's up on the side of a hill some time; my neck still hurts.)

Bighorn sheep posing for a picture.

After getting a couple dozen pictures, I decided I couldn't stand being in the cramped position I had to use any more. I turned the engine off, opened the door, and stood up. The sheep stayed right there. It looked at me now and then, and it looked around at voices I could hear up and down the road. After a while, it got bored and ambled off. I got a video of that. I'm not very good at pointing the camera for videos. I just can't get used to having to use the LCD for movies, despite having done that for the past 2 or 3 years. If you turn the volume up, you can hear crickets, image stabilization, and voices in the distance.

Bighorn sheep wanders off.

I'm pretty sure it's a female. The males have the large horns. If you search for images of bighorn sheep, 99% of what you find are males. Click below to see all of the pictures. There are a lot.

2011_12_11

Near Picketpost Mountain

2011-12-05T16:46:00.001-07:00

Last winter we had some snow down below about 3500 feet. I went out to Superior and tried (with limited success) to find a spot from which to get decent pictures of Picketpost Mountain. I think I found a great spot yesterday, and I didn't even have to get out of my truck.

This is FR231, aka Reymert Road (on some maps).

I did get out of the truck, though, and I climbed a fair sized hill before I discovered the road. Well, I needed the exercise.

Picketpost Mountain from the top of the hill.

It was still pretty cloudy when I was on the hill. I could tell that the clouds were thinning out and I wanted to hang around up there a while and get more pictures as the clouds cleared, but I didn't have clothes warm enough to just stand around as the sun set. I had to keep moving or freeze. It was probably in the 50's out there, but I freeze at remarkably high temperatures. I really need to put some warm clothes in the backpack now that it's cooled off, in case I get stuck out there.

There was a little snow at the very top of Picketpost. There was more on the mountains east of Superior, but it was mostly hidden in clouds.

Look closely and you can see a little snow in the distance on the left.

I had a pretty good view of the mountains to the north, which are the rugged mountains you drive through on your way to the Roger's Trough trailhead. Well, I would have had a good view if it wasn't so hazy and cloudy. I need to go back there when it's clear and get better pictures.

Hewitt Canyon road goes through those mountains.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_12_04

Yet another gloomy day

2011-11-20T14:26:00.001-07:00

Remember how gloomy it was last Saturday? There isn't any rain in the forecast until Monday, so I wasn't worried about rain yesterday. We had the exact same pattern of clouds moving in from the southwest, though, and by the time I got out to Bulldog Canyon, the sky was grey.

The Supes on a gloomy day.

I didn't want to drive a long way on Saturday, so I headed for Bulldog Canyon. As I approached the Wolverine Pass entrance, I remembered the guy that didn't have a pass the last time I was out there and all the knuckleheads that break the lock and tear up the desert in that area and thought about going someplace else. I had about decided to turn around when I saw a ranger at the gate. He was checking passes as people entered. Hallelujah. It was good to see them doing something about the knuckleheads.

I'm going to walk up there somewhere.

The people that had passes and got in still drove places they weren't supposed to, but I won't get into that now.

I planned to go somewhere I hadn't exactly been before, just to see something slightly new. I headed up the side of a mountain. Part way up, I thought I could see a wall built near the top. I zoomed in and took a picture, and zoomed in on that and decided that maybe it wasn't a wall, but decided to wander in that direction until it got impossible or I got tired.

Does that look like a wall to you?

I kept thinking I should stop and turn back, and then I would think about looking at the pictures when I got home and realizing that it was a wall and I needed to go back up there to check it out, so I kept going. Eventually, I got to a point where it was getting dangerously steep. When I'm putting my hands on the rock as I'm climbing up, it's too steep. Fortunately, I have decided that it's just rock and not a wall.

On the way down, I saw an air rescue helicopter fly over. I think it had come from somewhere in the Superstition Wilderness. I wonder if a hiker ran into trouble out there. I guess it could have come from the twisty road by Canyon Lake, too.

I also saw a plane with pontoons. You don't see those very often in Arizona.

Your landing options are somewhat limited in Arizona with this plane.

BC_2011_11_19

Exploring near Roosevelt Lake

2011-11-13T10:55:00.001-07:00

While taking photo point pictures near Roosevelt Lake, I had seen several things I wanted to check out further when time and weather permitted. It wasn't supposed to be raining on Saturday (it's strange how often I have to take that into consideration in a desert during a drought), so I went out there to look at a small canyon formed by Parker Creek. I did get sprinkled on a couple of times out there, but it wasn't enough rain to get anything wet. It was overcast and gloomy, though.

Parker Creek. Barely visible in the background is the scenic and more popular Parker Canyon.

The first thing I found when I got down to Parker Creek was a gold pan.

At first it looked like Parker Creek was dry. That's because it had gone underground. When I got to the narrow part of the canyon, which has a solid rock bottom, there was flowing water. That was also when the weather started to bother me. It was so gloomy. I was surrounded by grey rock with a grey sky overhead. It was also eerily quiet. I like the quiet of the desert, but it was just too quiet. There wasn't even a hint of a breeze. Near the water, you could hear it trickling over rocks, but that was the only sound. As gloomy as it looked, I wasn't very interested in taking pictures. Since the light wasn't good for pictures, I didn't want to go to the effort of clambering upstream very far.

Gloomy canyon.

A short video with the sound of the water.

There was another thing that I wanted to check out in that area. Northeast of the A-Cross ranger station (which is now closed and boarded up), there's a clump of green on the side of a large hill (must be a spring there). If you look at the area on Google Earth, it looks like there are two large, white rectangles in the middle of the green. I wanted to know what those what rectangles are.

As I drove back to A-Cross road, I noticed a small room built into the side of a hill. I had seen a larger one a little south of this one. A ranger tells me that structures like this were probably used to store explosives used to build A-Cross road. The crew working on the road was housed on the other side of the hill, safely away from the explosives. Something unusual about these two structures is the concrete roofs. Usually, the roof would be made of something flimsy so all the force of an explosion would go up, without launching rock missiles.

Explosives storage.

From the top of the hill with the explosives storage rooms, I could see a structure of some sort in the middle of the trees on the side of the hill northeast of the old ranger station. I was getting really curious about what it was.

The (closed) A-Cross ranger station, and something on a hill.

The road to the ranger station is closed, also, but I was able to get reasonably close. For most of the way up the hill, I couldn't see what I was looking for and just had to go in the direction I thought I should. That usually works pretty good, though. I came across a couple of low walls along the way. They must have been built in an attempt to control erosion.

A low wall on the side of the hill.

I didn't approach the spring from the best angle. I struggled through dense vegetation and a pile of plant debris to get to it. There's a fence around the area and the plant debris came from clearing out the fenced area.

My first view of the structure. A fence inside a fence? And how could this show up on Google Earth?

I could see a gate and worked my way over to it. There was a sign there that said, "BAR ELEVEN RANCH WATER SOURCE KEEP OUT". OK, I know what it is, but I still don't know what the big white rectangles are. I figured the "keep out" part was meant for people that might mess with their water and went in, being very careful not to mess with anything. I would have gone around the outside to see what was in there if it hadn't been nearly impossible to move through the dense foliage outside the fence. Anyway, the white rectangles are the cement lids over large tanks that capture spring water. Mystery solved. The fence at the back is to keep dirt from washing down and covering the tanks.

The white rectangles.

Turns out that there's a trail going up to the water tanks. I followed it on the way down. It was much easier than the trip up there. It was getting dark by the time I got to the truck.

2011_11_12

Another ridge in Bulldog Canyon

2011-11-06T13:21:00.000-07:00

As you enter Bulldog Canyon OHV area at the Wolverine Pass entrance (see the link to my map of Bulldog Canyon to the right if you're interested in knowing where that is), there's a low rock cliff on your right. I've been driving by that cliff for years and thinking that someday I was going to walk along the top of it. On Saturday, I headed for Bulldog Canyon planning to go someplace other than that cliff, but you know how I am.

The low rock cliffs.

There was some guy with some dirt bikes on a trailer hanging around the entrance. I had a feeling he was looking for somebody to open the gate for him. I decided that it was time to walk along that cliff and parked in the lot at the entrance. I was loading up when the guy came over with a sad story about getting to the ranger station just a couple of minutes too late to get a pass on Friday. There sure are a lot of people that are willing for me to incur fines and lose my pass on their behalf. He seemed like a nice guy, but I'm not going to take on risk for no possible benefit to help some stranger skirt the law.

He hung out there for a long time hoping to get in. An hour later some knuckleheads left the gate open, but this guy was gone by then.

The Wolverine Pass entrance is the entrance that's closest to town. Consequently, it's the most popular with knuckleheads. One road leaves the gate and splits into two, but the knuckleheads have made trails criss-crossing all over the place in that area. Before long, there's going to be nothing but bare dirt hills there. Anyway, I followed a trail made by dirt bikes towards the cliff.

The trail I followed is on the right side of this picture and goes through that shadow.

It was an easy hike to the top of the ridge, and there were nice views of the Superstition Mountains and Goldfield Mountains from up there. It would probably be a good place to get pictures of the city lights at night, too. There were fresh shod horse (i.e. not wild horse) prints along the top. Maybe people ride out there when they rent horses along Apache Trail.

Rocky view.

A view of the Superstition Mountains.

The scenery is nice in that area, but for the last hour I had to listen to the constant buzz buzz buzz of dirt bikes tearing up the desert. That's why I don't hike near the entrances very often.

BC_2011_11_05

Park Creek and Reno Creek photo points

2011-11-02T19:43:00.000-07:00

I've been having a little trouble making blog updates lately. I've been distracted by an irresistibly cute 2-year-old. If she wants to play, I can't say no.

I knocked off two sets of photo points on Sunday. It's the ones that I didn't do a few weeks ago because I had forgotten to take the notebook with me. Park Creek was very easy. Just two photo points, not very far apart, and it didn't take me long to find them. I had looked at the location of the Reno Creek photo points in Google Earth and based on that and the reference photos, I thought it would be even easier than Park Creek. Silly me. I should know better than to think that.

It was easy to find the general area of the Reno Creek photo points, and they are all pretty close together. Two things threw me off, though. First, the reference photos had been taken after a fire that had cleared out a lot of vegetation. The plants have made a roaring comeback and visibility was severely shortened since 2006. Second, the hand-drawn map of the area doesn't quite match what is there. Maybe there are minor errors, or maybe the fence has been moved around a little. Anyway, I couldn't get to where I thought the first photo point should be. I finally decided to see if my phone had a signal and I had a 3G signal, so I opened up Google Earth and went to my location. I wasn't where I thought I was. No big surprise. I walked to where I thought I should be and then I was further from where I was supposed to be. Wow, it sure was handy having Google Earth with me as I wandered around. I decided to walk the perimeter of the fenced area and try to match the track on my PN-40 to the drawing in the notebook. The shape I got was sort of a mirror image of what was drawn. I think that was what caused a lot of my confusion. Now I was able to go directly to the first photo point. Well, almost. There are several very large sycamore trees out there. One of them had fallen on the first photo point. I got as close as I could to the correct spot. A tree in the reference photo that convinced me I was in the right spot is almost hidden now because of all the new growth out there.

After getting myself oriented and getting the first picture, I relaxed and sat down to have a snack. Remember when I was at another photo point location a few weeks ago and there were lots of birds and I knew there were some woodpeckers but all I saw of them was quick streaks as they flitted back and forth? Well, anyway, they were at Reno Creek, too. While I was eating, one landed on a narrow branch almost directly overhead and stayed there long enough for me to get a picture.

A Gilded Flicker, directly overhead. I'm glad there weren't any clouds up there or I wouldn't have gotten a decent exposure before it flew off.

The rest of the photo points went smoothly (except for the occasional fallen tree blocking a view). When I had been looking at maps before I went out there, I had seen that there was something called "Camp Reno" near there. Turns out there's a sign marking the general area. I decided to see if there were any ruins.

Camp Reno, occupied from 1868 to 1870.

As I was walking to the truck to leave the notebook there, I came across a couple of guys that asked me if I knew where Camp Reno was. I explained that I was just going to look for it. One of them shook his head and said, "Good luck". I guess they had been looking for it for a while themselves. Anyway, I was heading into the woods (it was kind of woodsy) when they drove by on their way out. They asked if I needed some water or a snack before they left. That was very kind of them. I told them thanks, but I have plenty. Afterwards, I got to thinking that their offer was just a little odd. If somebody was hungry or thirsty, they wouldn't be wandering off into the desert in search of a long-abandoned camp, would they? I thought a little more and realized that isn't the first time something like that has happened. On a couple of occasions, I've come across other people who looked concerned and asked if I was OK and if I needed anything. I wonder if it's the grey hair or if I just look much worse than I feel when I'm hiking. I'll have to try to get some pictures.

I didn't see any structures, or anyplace that looked like there used to be structures. There is an "Old Fort Reno" marker on the PN-40, so I stood in that exact spot and took a 360 degree panorama. Maybe you can find something in the picture. I couldn't.

Old Fort Reno. Well, its location.

Most of the 300 or so pictures I took that day went into the photo point pictures. Click below to see the rest.

2011_10_30

A late afternoon stroll

2011-10-19T19:36:00.000-07:00

Now that it's cool enough to hike right after work, it also gets dark soon after work. So I hurried out to Bulldog Canyon after work and parked at the side of Bush Highway and headed for a hill that I wasn't sure I had climbed before. Once I got up there, it looked a little familiar. I think I had been up there when I hiked out to that pit dug in the middle of a relatively flat area.

This used to be a road that the local yokels used to go to target practice.

The sun was pretty low by the time I got to the top of the hill. I'm glad I finally figured out how to prevent all the pictures from having such a strong reddish hue that late in the day.

A stick. One of the most critical factors in photographing a stick is the position of the sun. It was a little too far north for this picture.

I only had time to cover about a mile. Took me an hour. I had to keep stopping to enjoy the view.

I took several pictures of this saguaro. Didn't like most of them.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

BC_2011_10_18

Campaign Creek, part 2. And Bigfoot.

2011-10-16T20:10:00.000-07:00

I went out to Campaign Creek again yesterday, to finish the photo point pictures. I saw more beautiful scenery. This time I made sure I had snacks in my backpack.

The view along the road.

Remember that steep hill that I was afraid to drive down last time? Well, when I was walking up and down it last time, I decided that it didn't look too steep. This time, I drove down it. That saved me a lot of walking, which was good since I was there in the middle of the day and it's still a little warm. Turns out that hill is called Skydive Hill.

Whenever I've looked at maps of that area, I've noticed something called "Reevis Mountain School" on the maps. I thought it must be an old one-room schoolhouse that had been in use many many years ago. Well, the road ends near there. Turns out it isn't an old schoolhouse after all.

The sign on the right was my first clue that the Reevis Mountain School is not what I thought it was.

It looked like nobody had been in the parking area (which was just a loop at the end of the road) for a while, so I left the truck windows open and took only my camera and GPS with me. I walked to the end of the road that continues past the parking area. The road goes to Reevis Mountain School. It was there that I learned that the school is still active. As I stood looking at the gate, I heard a large animal clomping around on the hill to my left. It didn't sound as clumsy as a cow or as light as a deer. I only saw a small part of it as it walked through the trees above me. I don't think there are elk in that area. It sounded like it had hooves, though. I didn't see any cows the whole time I was out there. Well, no live cows, that is.

Signs near the gate. I bet Peter gets tired of hearing Bigfoot jokes.

The first photo point I visited was near the gate, and I went over there to get the pictures. I was getting thirsty by the time I was done and was a little worried about the truck windows being open. The RMS sign seemed very inviting and I wanted to check out the place, but I headed back to the truck. Here is more info on the school, if you are interested.

When I got back to the truck, I drank some water and headed for the next photo point, which was just a few feet from where I parked. I was taking pictures when a side-by-side with a couple of guys in it pulled into the parking lot. I wasn't concerned until the engine shut off. Then I decided I should let them know the truck wasn't unattended. They were busy getting more beer out of their cooler and getting rid of the beer for which their lease had expired. I got in the truck and headed for the next photo point.

Here's a short video of Campaign Creek just upstream of the road. I made a video so you could hear the water and the birds. The birds were mostly quiet, though.

At the next photo point, I took the pictures a few yards upstream of the road and was headed back to the truck when a Suburban with a big winch on the front went by. I waved and they waved back. Later, when I had just two photo points left, I parked at the bottom of Skydive Hill. When I shut off the engine, I thought I could hear the Suburban approaching. I thought about that big winch. I thought about the fact that I still wasn't sure I could drive up Skydive Hill. I thought about how somebody driving a Suburban would love to gloat over helping a Toyota up a hill. I decided to try driving up the hill before the Suburban arrived. It was a piece of cake. I locked the rear axle part of the way but probably didn't have to.

I took my backpack to hike to the last two photo points, which was a good thing. I drank lots of water and ate some snacks along the way.

Here's a dead cow. At least, I think it's a cow. Hard to tell. I see bones all over the place when taking photo point pictures.

The hike to the next photo point was very scenic. I walked very slowly, enjoying the views.

The next photos are to be taken from the top of that ledge on the right. That tree that has fallen on the ledge completely blocks the downstream view, though. Would have taken too much sawing to cut branches out of the way.

It took me 3 hours to take a few pictures. Seems like a long time. I was having fun, though. I'm going to check out some of the side roads out there some time. I'll probably check out some of the hiking trails when the weather cools off a little more, too. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_10_15

Spiders. Not.

2011-10-14T17:06:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, I had been standing on some river rocks at the edge of the Salt River, and dozens of spiders came up from their hiding places between and under the rocks to hunt, "socialize", or search for a mate (actually, I have no idea why they were on top of the rocks). I got a few pictures then, but I thought a super panorama stitched together out of lots of pictures might look cool. I finally got around to doing that a couple of days ago. I think it was too late in the year, though. I only saw three spiders. Maybe it was too late in the day, too. It was too dark to get any good pictures.

One grainy spider picture.

I saw a few strange things out there. Lots of people go out there, though, so I guess strange things should be expected. First was a hole that somebody had dug in the sand of a wash. What made it strange was that it had boards around the sides, like it was a mine shaft. The hole had been filled in with rocks.

What's under those rocks? I'm not about to look. Help yourself.

The river almost always looks pretty.

The next strange thing was a dead cow. Well, dead cows aren't strange. I've come across dead cows everywhere that cows hang out. The strange thing about this one was that it was in a place where there shouldn't be any cows. Must have been dropped there by a UFO when the aliens were done with it. Wait. I just realized that maybe it's a horse. There are wild horses out there. I only paused near it long enough to get a quick picture. I can't hold my breath for very long when I'm hiking.

Putrid cow. Or horse.

The third strange thing was lots of pieces of fabric in trees. I guess the river left them there, but where did it get them? Also, I didn't know the river ever got that high. With all the dams on the Salt, I wonder if it's possible for it to flood right there any more. This was just a few miles downstream of the Stewart Mountain dam.

Fabric in trees.

Getting late. I like the way this turned out.

Except for the stinky cow, it was a fun hike. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_10_12

A long ride

2011-10-09T19:55:00.002-07:00

Julia and Willie are visiting this weekend and wanted to go for a ride in the Ranger yesterday. It's finally cool enough to do that again. I wanted to show them a scenic area that nobody except hardcore off-road enthusiasts and ATV riders see. We went to Box Canyon road, at the end of Price road, east of Florence.

At our first picture-taking stop.

It was a beautiful, cloudless day. Well, I did see 2 small clouds. They were small, though. Julia almost couldn't find them. It was very cool in the morning, which I think is why they were wearing black. It was a little too warm for all that black by the time we were done.

Enjoying the view.

I was trying to make it all the way to the coke ovens on this trip, also. That's a very long trip, though. We drove 21 miles and still didn't get there. We were stopped by something I didn't want to take the Ranger over.

This is too big of a step for the Ranger. It's interesting how many vehicle parts are scattered along this "road". There were what looked like bicycle pieces here.

Scenic view.

I thought we might be out there for 2 or 3 hours, but it turned out to be about 5 hours. It had rained a few days earlier and we didn't encounter much other traffic until the last half hour or so, so there wasn't much dust. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_10_08

Campaign Creek treasure hunt, part 1

2011-10-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is just part 1. There were complications, as usual. One was my fault, and one was the weather.

There were a few nice clouds around when I got out there. There was rain in the forecast, though, and it was early in the day.

I got out there earlier than usual. Before lunch. I was planning to eat some of the food bars in a box in my backpack. Before I left the house, I checked to be sure that I had plenty of water, that all batteries were charged, that I had all the maps I might need, etc., etc. But I didn't look in that box.

Forty-five minutes later and those clouds have grown and are dropping some rain.

The first photo point I came to was easy to find and was right next to the road. The creek bed seems to have changed a lot since the original photos were take in '96. There were some features in the backgrounds of the originals that helped me get in the right spots for the photos, though.

There are some interesting rock formations in this area. Oh, and clouds are forming on this side of the lake, now.

I'm really glad I've been doing this photo point stuff. I've seen lots of beautiful areas that I probably never would have visited otherwise. I hope they don't run out of places that need to be photographed.

The next group of photo points was at the bottom of a hill. The road looked really steep from the top. Skid doesn't seem to mind coming to rescue me when I'm stuck somewhere within 20 miles of his house, but he might not be too enthusiastic about going all the way out to Roosevelt Lake. From the top of the hill, it was only 1 mile to the furthest photo point. An easy walk, so I left the truck at the top of the hill and walked. At the bottom of the hill, I decided to go after a photo point that was about 75 yards upstream of the road crossing first. It was beautiful along there. Trees completely covered the area, but there was plenty of room to walk. There were pools of water every once in a while, but they weren't stagnant. Water was flowing through them. There were lots of large birds flying around. I couldn't get a good look at them through the trees. I'm pretty sure one was a hawk. I saw a pair flying together that reminded me of woodpeckers, but I didn't get a very good look at them. I did hear woodpeckers now and then, though. I heard bird calls the whole time that I didn't recognize. Most of the time I was up there, there was a nice breeze blowing through.

Fish in a puddle.

The photo point that I was searching for turned out to be one of those difficult ones. I think the creek bed had changed so much, it just wasn't recognizable. There weren't any mountain ridges or such in the backgrounds of the reference photos to use as a reference. The description mentioned standing on some bedrock to take the photo, but there wasn't any bedrock to stand on any where near where the photo point should have been. I finally decided that the bedrock was now buried in sand and took the picture from where I thought I should. I didn't arrive at that decision lightly, though. I walked up and down that creek bed several times. One thing that made that difficult was that a cow had died near there. At least, I assume it was a cow. I didn't want to see whatever it was. For a 20 yard stretch the stench was so bad I held my breath even though I was panting from scrambling back and forth. On one of the downstream walks during my search (and at a spot where the air was fresh and breathable), I decided I needed some nourishment to continue my search. That's when I discovered I was carrying an empty box of food bars. Well, there had been other developments during the search. As I walked up and down the creek bed, I noticed that it had suddenly gotten darker. I was so intent on my search, though, I didn't look up. At least, not until I heard a loud clap of thunder. I had been thinking that I might be able to continue getting pictures on an empty stomach, but I also thought about the fact that I had to drive in the creek bed for a few miles to get out of there. There's a ranch house in that creek bed, and they've built massive concrete, sand, and steel walls to keep the creek out when it floods. If it did flood, I didn't want to be there.

I need something for scale here. That crescent shaped rock is about 5 feet tall.

Remember that I left the truck at the top of a hill? Remember the thunder? The closer I got to the truck, the more exposed I felt, and the faster I climbed. When I finally got to the truck, gasping and dripping with sweat, I was anxious to be surrounded by steel with A/C blowing on me. Then a large wasp decided that it wanted to land on me. I don't know why it wanted to do that. I've had honey bees fly around my waist bumping into me now and then, but they go away after a while. I didn't know what the wasp would do, though. I thought about jumping into the truck with my backpack on, but I wasn't sure I would fit like that, and while I was trying to squeeze in the wasp would be able to land on me and have it's way with me. So I bopped it with the photo point notebook. Maybe not the best idea, but I was hoping that might scare it away. Armed bugs don't seem to scare easily, though. They just get mad. It came back at me and seemed agitated now, and more insistent about landing on me. Thunder rumbled through the surrounding canyons. Sweat burned my eyes. My legs trembled from hunger. I decided that this was no time to be messing around with a silly wasp and bopped it hard. While it was on the ground I mashed it and got in the truck. I felt a little bad about stomping on it but I would have felt worse if it had stung me or if I had been blasted by lightning while dancing around my truck. I didn't get a good look at it. It wasn't a tarantula hawk. It looked a little like a yellow jacket but about twice as big.

I found a crested saguaro.

I drove to Boston's Bar at Grill at Roosevelt Lake. It was a little high priced but was good food. I hung around in that area trying to decide if I should head back up Campaign Creek for a while. I could see that it was raining up there, though. No sense in pushing my luck. I got home long before sunset for a change. Can't wait to go back and finish. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_10_02

Another attempt at a Fish Creek Hill overlook

2011-09-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

This time I went slightly north of where I did last time, and I went along the bottom of one of the many "canyons". It was much cooler that it had been the last time I was out there; just 95 or so. There was also a very nice breeze blowing. Pretty close to perfect weather. I like it warm.

I followed the canyon just to the right of center, though not at the very bottom; too many plants there.

There were lots of side canyons and I could see that a person could quickly get confused about which direction they had come from when trying to find their way back. I got out there kind of late and didn't have a lot of sunshine left and I was getting hungry, so when a cloud got in front of the sun and made it seem much later than it was, I turned back.

I saw what looked like a rock climber stuck on a cliff face in the distance. Turns out it was a light-colored rock.

I was out there late enough for good lighting.

I went out there mostly to enjoy some peace and quiet and solitude, and I accomplished that. I wasn't at all disappointed about not getting to a point where I would see the road going down Fish Creek Hill. I'm going to change my approach the next time out there. In the direction I've gone the last two times, I would have to be right on the cliff edge to be able to see the road below, and we all know I can't stand to do that. Next time, I'm going to follow a ridge south of where I've been going that should give me a good view of the hill. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_09_25

Wednesday afternoon stroll

2011-09-22T20:37:00.000-07:00

It seemed so cool again on Wednesday that I went for a short hike. It was below 100 when I parked the truck. I went out by Canyon Lake again because there's lots of places I haven't seen out there that are easy to get to.

The landscape is very rocky around Canyon Lake. There are also a lot of power lines.

It turns out that I was in Willow Creek again, further upstream than I've been before. I went down there because there is so much solid rock. I thought it might make some interesting pictures. The sun set too soon, though. Actually, it was blocked by mountains.

This cholla skeleton would have looked better with the sun shining on it.

I've been planning to get another super panorama of the Superstition Mountains, this time from Silly Mountain, for a while. I thought Wednesday might be the perfect day for it. The air seemed very clear, but on the way there I saw that there were a few clouds on the horizon that I didn't want in the picture. Wound up at Willow Creek instead.

One of those clouds.

As I was headed back to the truck, I saw a cloud that had an odd shape for a cloud. I had seen smoke on the way out there and so I thought that maybe that's what it was.

An odd-looking cloud that turned out to not be a cloud. Well, not a water cloud.

Before I went back to the truck, I climbed a hill near it and was surprised to see that it looked very hazy in all directions. I couldn't smell smoke, though. I decided that it must be dust. It did arrive with a gust of wind, but not a very strong gust. It must have been very fine dust. I tried getting pictures that show it, but it was getting dark.

Dust in the air.

It looked like the dust went all the way out to Four Peaks. It covered the Superstition and Goldfield Mountains. Good thing I hadn't been trying to get that super panorama. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_09_21

Willow Creek to the Salt River

2011-09-18T16:21:00.000-07:00

I was very curious to see what the rest of Willow Creek looks like. I went back to it on Saturday afternoon. A long time ago, somebody must have dumped a lot of 50 gallon drums near where I parked this time. They were scattered all along Willow Creek and the wash I followed to Willow Creek. Made me wonder what kind of toxic wastes might have been dumped into the water supply.

Old tires, 50 gallon drums, and shot up cans, bottles, and hub caps define this hike. One of the reasons I don't like hiking so close to busy roads.

I had trouble with my DeLorme PN-40 on this hike. Since I was in a narrow canyon, it couldn't acquire enough satellites to navigate. That shouldn't be a big deal, BUT the PN-40 asks if you want it to continue searching for satellites or give up. Since the receiver is in a pocket of my backpack, I don't know it's waiting for an answer. Still, that shouldn't be a complete disaster. I mean, I should have the GPS track up until the point that it was unable to navigate any more, right? Wrong! The two times that my PN-40 has gotten into this situation, it deleted all the track data it had collected up to that point. I might as well have never tuned it on. Seems like a serious software flaw. I'll have to check online sometime and see if there's a fix. This time, not only did it delete all track data (which is stored in non-volatile memory, so it wasn't deleted because of what I had to do next), but it froze up like a Windows PC. None of the buttons did anything. I had to pull the batteries out before I could do anything with it. This behavior is really aggravating. Good thing I don't rely on it for anything other than geotagging pictures. For some of Saturdays pictures, I knew exactly where I was when I took them. For a lot that I took in Willow Creek, though, I had to guess.

This PN-40 and the track it had saved until this happened are toast.

Anyway, back to the hike. I stumbled across some javelinas. There were at least 3 and they all ran different directions. I tried to get pictures but they didn't turn out very good.

Here's a javelina leaping through the air.

The closer I got to the Salt River, the steeper Willow Creek became and the larger the boulders in Willow Creek. I took me almost 15 minutes to cover the last 200 feet of the hike. It would have taken some rock climbing equipment to go any further than I did.

A view of the river, which is good since I couldn't go any further.

I didn't stay there long. The sun was getting low and so I had to get close to the truck before it got dark. Also, I wanted to be able to see the javelinas if I came across them again. Not because I like seeing javelinas, but because I like to keep an eye on animals that can tear me up if they feel so inclined. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_09_17

Back to the dry waterfall

2011-09-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

I kept wondering what the place where that dry waterfall I saw last week would look like from the creek at the bottom. Wednesday was another cool day (I think the high was 99), so I went back. The trail I had seen in Google Earth was well-worn and easy to find and not too steep. I got to the bottom and a little ways up the other side to get pictures. It wasn't real impressive, but I'm sure it looks better with water.

Location of the waterfall. Imagine some water.

On the way down, I noticed the the view downstream was nice. I still had some sunlight so I headed that way. As I left the area where I had come down to the creek bed, I stopped and looked around at the area for a while. I didn't want to miss my exit on the way back.

Downstream. Could be interesting.

Every time I've hiked near Canyon Lake before, I've headed to the tops of hills or mountains because the view is usually spectacular. This hike was completely different but still very interesting. It was someplace that I had never been, and I couldn't even see any place that I had ever been. It was a little eerie. The best thing about it was how quiet it was. The drawback to hiking near the lake is all the traffic noise. Down in the canyon, I couldn't hear it at all. There were no bug noises, and few bird calls. Just my breathing and the crunching of my footsteps. Oh, and my camera shutter now and then.

A canyon wren posed for pictures. Well, I was in a canyon.

As I walked along, I kept thinking that I might see the lake or the river that drains it around the next bend, or maybe the bend after that. As sunset approached, I got my GPS receiver out to see where I was. It was another half mile to the river as the crow flies, and almost a mile the way I stagger over boulders and around bushes and trees. The moon wouldn't be up for quite a while after sunset, so it was time to head back. I don't carry a flashlight bright enough to find the landmarks I had memorized. I got back with light to spare.

I want to go the rest of the way to the river. There's another place I can park that will easily get me to where I stopped this time. Some time soon...

Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_09_14

A (dry) waterfall, and a haboob

2011-09-12T19:42:00.000-07:00

Saturday was wonderfully cool (only about 100), but there were lots of showers around so I didn't go hiking. I did drive around in some heave rainstorms, though. It was still pretty cool on Sunday (I think the high was 99), and the showers were smaller and further between, so I headed out to a place near Canyon Lake that I have been meaning to check out. There's a road next to an old corral that I've seen a couple of vehicles going down. When I got there, there were signs saying that the road was closed to vehicles. No problem, I was out there to hike anyway.

Parking spot with fluffy clouds.

That vertical sign in the middle says "No vehicles".

My only plan was to wander around a little and see what I could find. When I was beyond the end of the "road", I noticed an interesting cliff to west and decided to get a closer look at it after I got pictures of the nice view to the east.

The view to the east.

It turns out that the interesting cliff probably has a very nice waterfall pouring over it when it rains hard enough. I couldn't get a very good picture of it, though. I would have had to get close to the edge to do that, and it was at least a 20 foot drop. I don't like being on cliff edges when I'm taking pictures. I really need to get a stereo picture from the bottom. I was looking at Google Earth tonight and it looks like there might be a path down to the bottom just east of the waterfall. I'll have to make plans to hike down there during a good soaking winter rain.

Speaking of rain, there was some on the way.

It looked like it might rain while I was out there, but it would probably be a light shower, with lots of lightning and probably dust. I didn't want to be out in it. I headed for the truck and started driving back. As I drove along Apache Trail, I saw dust obscuring the Santan Mountains to the south. When I finally got to a place that I could see across the valley to the west, I saw a wall of dust headed north. It was a classic haboob. We've had several of those this summer, but I was never in the right place at the right time to get any pictures. I was on the shady side of this one, but it was better than nothing.

Haboob heading north.

I was about 5 miles from home when I got into the dust myself. It wasn't very thick on my side of town. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_09_11

A brief respite

2011-09-07T21:11:00.000-07:00

As I walked to my car after work yesterday, I marveled at the fact that it didn't feel like the skin on my face was being set on fire. It was only about 105 when I got home. I grabbed my backpack and camera and headed for Bulldog Canyon. It was only about 101 when I got out of the truck. Since it was so cool, I headed uphill.

Every time I've walked by this, I've thought about climbing it. Finally did it.

I headed up a slope that I've looked at many times, wondering if it would be possible to walk up it. Sometimes it looked easy and sometimes it looked impossible. I guess it's a little of both.

The view from where I stopped climbing.

It was easy because I was always able to find paths that were not extremely steep. I realized that it could be difficult getting back down if I wasn't able to retrace all those little twists and turns. I did in fact make a major wrong turn on the way down and had to double back a little ways when I got to a dead end (in the form of a 20 foot drop).

That's Four Peaks back there.

I stopped before I got to the top for several reasons. First, I am out of shape. Second, I was unfamiliar with that area. Third, it was getting close to sunset. Being in an unfamiliar area when you are tired and it's dark is one step away from disaster, so I didn't push things by going the last few feet to the top. Also, as anyone who has done any climbing at all knows, when it looks like you are close to the top, you aren't. I got back to the truck well before sunset. It was back to being toasty outside today. Glad I went for a hike while I could. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_09_06

Rock Creek

2011-09-04T20:24:00.000-07:00

I had decided that it was just too hot this summer to be taking Photo Point pictures, but by Friday evening I was anxious to go get some more pictures. I headed out toward Roosevelt Lake again. It was smokey when I left the valley, and it was smokey when I passed through Miami / Globe. There are a couple of forest fires that are putting out a lot of smoke. They are small compared to some we've had this summer, and with the monsoon humidity they aren't going wild, and they were started by lightning, so the forest service is letting them burn.

You can see smoke from one of the fires in this picture, if you know where to look and look closely.

I had coordinates for all the photo points already entered in my GPS receiver, and most of them were along a road, so I didn't waste much time wandering around in the heat. Still, whenever I walked over cottonwood leaves scattered on the ground, it sounded like it was raining from all the sweat dripping off my face. It was only about 100 and I wasn't doing much climbing, so the humidity must have been up. Also, I seem to sweat a lot more when I'm working on something. If I'm in the driveway changing a car battery, I'll be drenched. If I'm hiking I don't even sweat that much going uphill. Maybe it's because just hiking is so relaxing. Searching for photo points must be a little more taxing.

The first photo points were near a forest service cabin, which seems to be unoccupied at the moment. One of the photo points there was near wood piles and a thick layer of leaves on the ground and tall grass and other stuff. I don't normally worry about rattlesnakes while hiking because I have a good view of the ground. If I see them before I'm within striking distance, there's no problem. If there was one near that cabin, though, I could have stepped on it before I saw it.

A couple of recent photo points have been like that. They seem harmless and probably are harmless at least 95% of the time. After 8 years of hiking alone in the desert, I have developed rules for myself to avoid risky situations, and it's difficult to go against them. No hiker plans to get bitten, mauled, dehydrated, or fall off a cliff, but all it takes is two mistakes and you can be in big trouble. Going into a risky situation is a mistake that can be avoided if you recognize the risky situations. The second mistake will be a surprise (stepping on a snake, losing your footing, etc.), so you can't always prepare for it. Best to avoid the first mistake. If the first mistake can't be avoided, then you need to be very careful because you're one step away from disaster instead of two.

Speaking of losing your footing, I did that yesterday on the steep bank of a creek. I slid all the way to the bottom on my butt. Must have slid a foot and a half. That's why I avoid long steep slopes or steep slopes with a cliff at the bottom. I couldn't avoid the second mistake yesterday, but I didn't make the mistake of being on a dangerous slope, so it was no big deal. I didn't even get dirt in my pants this time (yes, I slip and fall down once or twice a year).

I didn't take a lot of non photo point pictures on this outing. That's one way I can tell that I've been out in the heat too long. If I look and something and think that I should take a picture of it but I don't because it's too much effort, it's time to get out of the sun. Anyway, click below to see the few pictures that there are.

2011_09_03

Wandering the desert, in air conditioned comfort

2011-08-29T20:14:00.000-07:00

I left the house on Sunday morning for the vicinity of Roosevelt Lake, planning to get some more Photo Point pictures. There had been some storms around Saturday evening, but I didn't see much dust blowing around then. It was so dusty on Sunday morning that I couldn't see the Superstition Mountains from 9 miles away. Dust that thick when the air is calm is unusual. Even if it had been a cool day, I wouldn't have gone hiking in dust that thick. Still, there were a lot of people out on the local hills and riding bicycles before the day got too hot. There was a lot of dust in the air almost until I got to the valley where Roosevelt Lake is located. I didn't take any pictures of the dust because that seemed silly. "Look at all the stuff you can't see in this picture". Ha. I guess I could have shown it with a picture of the same scene under clear conditions, but that seemed like too much work.

As I approached the first photo point, I reached for the notebook with the descriptions and reference photos and realized that it was still at the house. Dad gummit! Well, there was only one thing to do. Drive around and take pictures of stuff (it was too hot to hike).

This lizard seems to be upset about what has been left on its rock.

I got out of the truck now and then to wander around a little. One of those times, I walked out to an overlook of a wash. Suddenly there was a lot of clattering down in the stream bed. I had startled a couple of deer and they were noisily scrambling to get away. Deer look graceful when they are soaring over a fence or a bush, but if you have ever watched one that's in panic mode you know that grace is the furthest thing from their mind. That's understandable. I wouldn't be very graceful if I thought something was about to eat me. Anyway, I think maybe the pair was a doe and fawn. I quickly lost track of the smaller one and took pictures of the other one as it jumped and snorted and climbed the hill across from me.

Seems kind of skinny to me. What do you think?

I wandered around on the west side of the lake first. To get a good view of the lake, I would have had to climb a hill. Too hot to do that.

The last time I was out there, I had driven a little ways on A + Cross road. That's how it's written on signs, but it's pronounced "A Cross". I've been wanting to drive the length of that road for 4 or 5 years. So that's where I headed. The road is in very good shape, and there aren't any steep parts. There are interesting things to see along the way, too.

Barren hills. This is what you expect a desert to look like. Well, except for all that green stuff in the foreground.

Dutchwoman Butte really stands out from far away.

When I started out on A Cross road, I thought I might also drive up 288 to Young, but by the time I got to 288 I'd had enough beautiful scenery for one day. Instead of turning left, I turned right and headed for Globe, to the south. I had come into the valley from the north, near Payson, so I would have some different scenery on the way home. As I approached Globe, it looked like a puffy little cloud was dropping some rain. It looked like diffuse, gentle rain like you seen in Texas sometimes. I finally realized that I was looking at dust, though. There was a lot of it in the air all the way back to Mesa. I'm glad I got out of it for a little while. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_08_28

Armer Gulch and Cottonwood Wash

2011-08-21T19:00:00.001-07:00

I haven't taken any Photo Point pictures for a while. I decided to try to get out to a couple of them early Saturday, before it got too hot. It's a long drive, though, so I didn't get there very early. I was heading for Armer Gulch and Cottonwood Wash, just east of Roosevelt Lake. Another reason I wanted to go to that area was to get a look at Parker Canyon from the east.

Every time I've crossed the Salt River before, I've thought that I should stop and take a picture. Can't remember if I ever did, but it would have been nice for comparison. I don't think I've ever seen it so muddy.

I stopped to take some pictures at the Salt River. It was about 92 then and felt pretty good. I was thinking it might be pleasant as I took pictures at the photo points. Silly me.

There were puffy clouds to the east when I arrived.

I got to the side "road" that went to the first photo point and was supposed to follow it for half a mile. I remembered to look at the tripmeter. 82.1. There were lots of mesquite and cat claw branches intruding into the path. I dodged this way and that trying to avoid them, but was not very successful. After going through dozens and dozens of branches I checked the tripmeter to see if I was almost there. 82.1. I parked and started walking.

I had to climb a little to get into position for the first pictures. I had reference pictures with me that I had to match. A rock ledge lined up with distant mountains in one picture and a saguaro lined up with a road in the other showed me exactly where I needed to stand. I needed to stand in a place that, if I was out hiking just for fun, I would not have gone. It was at the top of a steep slope of loose dirt. If I slipped, I would probably go all the way to the bottom. At least there was a bottom. The dirt was very soft, so each time I put a foot down, I carefully let it sink into the dirt and made sure it couldn't slide downhill. I was wondering why that spot was picked and remembered that it was picked 20 years ago. I probably would have thought it was a good spot 20 years ago, too. I was still pretty much invincible then.

The climb and descent got me warmed up. There wasn't much of a breeze, especially once I was back down in the mesquites. I trudged back to the truck and started looking for the second photo point. Turns out I parked about 50 feet from it. A cottonwood in a reference picture was still there, but it was dead and will be gone soon.

I decided to trim some branches before driving out. I didn't cut very many, and my saw worked quickly, but the exertion and being in trees too thick to let a breeze through but too thin to block the sun just about fried me. I was able to drive to the third photo point.

Armer Gulch; a river of green flowing to Roosevelt Lake

After getting the last Armer Gulch pictures, I decided I needed to do some serious cooling off. I didn't know if I would even try to get any more photo point pictures. I wandered around (in the truck) trying to find a way to Parker Canyon and eating food bars and drinking water and drinking water. No, I didn't stutter.

I came across this while cooling off. The inside is about 4 feet by 5 feet. I can't imagine what it was for. It looks like it had a sturdy door, but that's been destroyed.

This narrow canyon is formed by Parker Creek. I'll get some pictures from the bottom when it's cooler and less likely to rain.

There were clouds building to the east as I drove around. I could see some rain and heard a little thunder. If it started to rain near where I was, I would just have to sit in the truck and wait. I'm sure there would be lots of water going across the roads. I wasn't going to worry about it, though. I'd cross that bridge when I came to it. Ha ha. Groan.

The road I was following toward Parker Canyon got worse the further I went, but I was able to keep going, so go I did. I came to a spot with several tall cottonwoods. A side road off the side road went into the middle of lush greenery. The ground on the sides of the side side road was solid berry vines. It was like a dark jungle in there.

A dense jungle in the desert.

There was a convenient place to park near the side road (which, strangely, was covered in a think layer of ash), so I parked and headed into the jungle. It was eerie. The eeriest part was a chain link fence at the end of the road. There were no tracks, no trail, just plants on the other side of the fence. Suddenly I heard "Hotel California" playing in my mind. It was just too creepy. I left.

You can check in, but you can't check out. I made like a ballerina and split.

After driving around for a while, I was cooled off and feeling pretty good. The clouds were also providing some shade so I decided to take pictures for the Cottonwood Wash photo points.

Cottonwood Wash, with Parker Canyon in sunlight in the background.

I walked up and down Cottonwood Wash several times looking for the first photo point. The reference pictures had no distinguishing reference points. No mountains in the backgrounds, no huge boulders, no steep banks. I couldn't find anything that looked as plain as the reference pictures. I was getting hot again, too. The clouds were dissipating. I was also getting tired since I hadn't had much of a lunch. My documentation has coordinates so I resorted to putting those in my GPS receiver. They took me to a spot that looked a little like the reference pictures; a rocky wash. Actually, the coordinates took me out of the wash, far beyond what typical GPS error would have done. I got close to the coordinates but stayed in the wash and took pictures. The next photo point was like that, too. If I hadn't had coordinates for the third, I would not have found it for weeks from the description. There were large cottonwoods there that matched the reference photos, so I knew I had found the right spot.

At one of the Cottonwood Wash photo points, I had taken my sunglasses off to take pictures and never picked them back up. At least I think that's what happened to them. I guess they could still be in the truck somewhere, but I can't find them. I'm glad I buy really cheap sunglasses. That pair had already lasted longer than most.

Several times while I was out there I searched for the tiniest bit of shade and stood there panting in the heat. It was very uncomfortable. Part of the problem is that I wear bluejeans. Very blue jeans. They soak up heat. Several times I've gone to stores planning to buy some thin, light colored pants. All the stores I've been to only have light colored pants for short, fat guys. What's up with that? Do the short fat guys run all the light colored pants factories or something? Well, I may have been uncomfortable, but I still had fun. I saw lots of cool stuff, too. I'd do it again. I will do it again. Click below to see most of the pictures.

2011_08_20

Still too hot

2011-08-15T17:34:00.001-07:00

For hiking in the middle of the day, that is. I had stuff to do in the morning and plans for the late afternoon, but I had to spend some time in the desert so I went in the middle of the day. I went out near Fish Creek Hill and was thinking I might take a short hike over to where I could see Apache Train descending the hill. It would be less than a mile round trip.

I couldn't drive as far as I wanted on this road, but I didn't need to go far.

There were signs of recent rain.

As you might guess from the clouds, the humidity was up. It was only about 100, but the intense sun and the humidity made it uncomfortable. There are very few saguaros up there, probably because of the altitude (about 3000 feet), so I couldn't hide in their shade. Clouds got between me and the sun now and then and that was very nice.

Apache Trail is over that cliff and 600 feet straight down.

I was kind of wandering in the general direction of where I wanted to be, with my exact direction of travel determined by what I wanted to get a closer look at and what the terrain would allow. I got within about 400 feet of my destination and stopped to take a few pictures. I looked around vainly for a place to get out of the sun and I studied the studied the slope ahead of me. I would have to descend 100 feet. It was mostly gradual, but there were occasional vertical drops of up to 8 feet. You can usually get around those, but it takes time. After considering the effort it would take to get to the cliff edge, the rate at which I was drinking water, and the fact that the return trip would be all uphill, I decided that it was time to turn back.

That's Four Peaks from the side way back there.

I had made stops on the way down to plot my course. I had to make stops on the way up to keep from overheating. I felt like a wimp when I decided to turn back but halfway up I knew I had made the right decision. By the time I got back to the truck I was getting a headache. Turning back had been a very good decision.

Whenever I have to postpone getting to my intended destination, I think about all the motivational speakers I've listened to saying that you have to set a goal and stick to it. I'm pretty sure that it would be foolish to apply such a philosophy to hiking in the desert. Or maybe I should just add "and return in good health" to my hiking goals. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_08_14

Sunset pictures

2011-08-10T19:46:00.000-07:00

The clouds we have this time of year often make for some stunning sunsets. I watched a couple from the yard but I've given up on taking pictures of them from there. Can't stand all the houses and light poles in the way. I used to drive out to the desert 2 or 3 times a week to get sunset pictures but I finally got tired of not enjoying them. It's been a while since I've taken any, so yesterday I headed out to Bulldog Canyon to go for a short hike and photograph the sunset.

I got out there just before the sun set.

The moon was up.

It was a nice sunset.

I didn't see much wildlife. Just rabbits and birds. I was next to a deer trail, but I didn't scare off any deer. There was only 1 fly and no gnats. Boy, that was nice. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_08_09

Exploring roads

2011-08-07T10:18:00.000-07:00

I wanted to go for a hike yesterday, but couldn't decide where. I eventually wound up exploring roads branching off of Kelvin Florence road. I went down several roads where my progress was stopped by gates (there are several ranches out there) or by terrain. Often, I couldn't turn the truck around when I needed to, so I had to back up a long way. My neck still hurts.

Barrel cacti have yellow flowers near where I live. This is a nice change.

It seems that Cochran road and Whitlow Ranch road are about the only roads that go all the way up to the Gila River. Whitlow Ranch road goes up to where all the water is taken from the Gila River and put in a canal. I didn't make it to the end of the road, though, so I couldn't see that.

I came across a very strange looking saguaro.

I uploaded the full size panoramas to my web album this time, instead of all the individual pictures. If you zoom all the way in and then wait a few seconds, you should be able to zoom in a lot more. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_08_06

To the Cochran coke ovens, almost

2011-07-31T10:12:00.000-07:00

In August of last year, I had gone a short distance north of the Florence Kelvin Highway before it got dark and I turned back. I've been meaning to check out that road in the daytime and since it was too hot to do much else yesterday, I went out there. There was a chance of storms, and I thought I might be able to get some nice pictures of storms too, but I usually manage to be in the wrong place to do that.

On Cochran Road, with rugged mountains in the distance.

I drove through that light shower on the way through Florence.

I made lots of stops along the way to take pictures. There are some pretty mountains on the other side of the Gila river. I think the only way to get back there would be to walk. Some roads get near them, but I don't think any go through them. I stitched together several panoramas and will put something close to the full size versions of those on Panoramio.

I think Skid and I had been on Cochran road several years ago. The river looked very familiar when I got down there. In spots, the river looked like it might be shallow enough to wade across, but the water was muddy so I don't know for sure. Also, it looked like it was moving fast enough that even if it didn't come up to your knees, it could knock you off your feet. I don't think I'll be trying to cross it.

The Gila river.

There were some nice clouds around, so almost all of the pictures are HDRIs. I think I got some nice pictures of rain showers, too. As I was driving out, I came to the top of a hill with a thunderstorm right in front of me. The lightning flashes were lasting a long time, at least half a second. I figured I should be able to get a picture of that. I caught a lightning bolt on my second attempt. Encouraged, I tried 10 or 15 more times and missed every one.

A slow lightning bolt.

With all the rain around, I was a little worried that I would get caught at a wash crossing. They were all dry, though. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_07_30

Sultry

2011-07-25T20:15:00.000-07:00

The weather, that is.

I took half a day off Friday. Spent the time getting the bathroom ready to wallpaper. Spent Saturday wallpapering it. Lindsey's help shaved a day or two off the task. Anyway, by Sunday afternoon I was ready to get out to the desert.

As Sweetums and I ran an errand after lunch, there were some cute puffy clouds around. I didn't want to go hiking right then, though. Too sunny and hot. I finally left the house around 3:30, and by then the pretty clouds were gone. The gray sheet overhead kept me a little cooler, but when the dew point is over 50, it's going to be a tough hike.

Blah sky. I hardly took any pictures.

I was going to hike a short distance to a secluded spot, but after a couple of hundred feet I felt like I was pushing through molasses. Hot molasses. I could feel a slight breeze but it did very little to cool me off. This is a tough time of year to be out in the desert; for me at least.

I had planned to go back there but never made it.

As I plodded along, I kept looking at all the bare rock to my right and before I knew it, I just sort of started wandering up that way. I think some part of my subconscious didn't want to get too far away from the truck air conditioner.

Some people go hiking early in the morning during hot weather. I've tried that a couple of times but I start feeling panicky as the temperature rises and the sun grows more intense. I prefer knowing that as I get tired during a hike, the weather will be less taxing on me.

By the time I got back to the house, the clouds and the setting sun were doing very strange things to the lighting. I think I was out there during the worst lighting of the day. Oh, well, maybe I'll time it right next time. Click below to see all six pictures.

2011_07_24

Barnhardt Trailhead

2011-07-18T19:58:00.000-07:00

How many of you noticed that the title of this blog is NOT "Barnhardt Trail"? How many of you also know that I'm going to put off telling you why until later? Good job.

Sunday was another one of those excessively warm days. About 110 F as I left the valley. There were storm clouds to the east but a hot wind was blowing. Starting at about 4000 feet, I thought the temperature on the Barnhardt trail might be tolerable.

Ominous clouds east of the trailhead.

The dirt road up to the trailhead was in very good shape. It was only about 100 when I got to the large parking area at the end of the road. There was also a lot of shade because of all the clouds. Large, dark clouds.

The trail starts out going that direction (west). A storm is building to the left of this picture.

On the drive up, there was a long, almost level stretch of road that had some ruts from the last time it rained up there. It reminded me of that time I was sliding around in the mud up on the rim about a year ago, though it was dry now. I didn't want to get stuck in mud; Skid is in Texas and couldn't rescue me. I decided to walk along the trail for a short distance so I could leave quickly if it looked like it was going to get wet.

The trail starts out winding through junipers.

Some parts of the trail are rocky.

Some parts are not rocky. There was a huge fire in this area a few years ago, which explains the sticks in this picture.

The trail has a gentle slope and is easy walking, but the air was dead calm and the humidity was probably over 40%. I had sweat trickling down my face in no time. I was glad when it started sprinkling and gave me an excuse to turn around.

As I drove back down to the highway, admiring the clouds all around, I saw something out of the corner of my eye that seemed to be shaped like a lizard but was the wrong color. Well, it wasn't a lizard color that I am used to seeing. It was a collared lizard and it let me take a lot of pictures before it ran under a bush.

Collared lizard.

Shortly after I saw the lizard, I decided to stop and see how steep the drop-off was to the right of the road. I wandered around a little enjoying the view and spotted something else odd out of the corner of my eye. I've come across a few crested saguaros on my hikes and I have read that other cacti can have that same type of deformity. I finally found another cactus like that. It was a hedgehog cactus.

Crested hedgehog cactus.

It was a pleasant and relaxing trip. I'l be back to that trailhead when it cools off. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_07_17

NF 25

2011-07-03T09:45:00.000-07:00

I went outside early yesterday morning to rearrange some stuff in the garage. It already felt very hot. I knew I'd have to go someplace high if I was going to hike. Turns out Phoenix had a record high yesterday; 118. That's just crazy.

Iron Dike doesn't look climbable from this side, but I think the north side is.

I had to take forest closures into account when deciding where to go. I decided to check out the view from the top of Iron Dike. It looks like a person should be able to walk up the north side of it, though I would be approaching from the south to reduce how much climbing I would have to do. When I left the house at 2 in the afternoon, it felt ridiculously hot outside. It was only about 98 when I got out of the truck near Iron Dike about an hour later. Being able to see a 20 degree drop in just an hour drive is nice.

The wind was blowing pretty good, too. It might have been stirred up by rain showers. I drove through the beginning of a dust storm as I left the valley. It's weird how much wind is created by these piddly little showers that barely get the ground damp. Anyway, one of those piddly little showers was south of me, and I could hear thunder. I wasn't worried about getting wet, but lightning could hurt. I decided that I would drive around out there rather than hike. I wasn't too disappointed, though. I didn't like the looks of all the bushy oak I would have had to push through on my chosen route.

NF 25. I've never been down there. It's labeled NF 201 on Google Earth, but the sign at the road says "25".

NF 25 is pretty smooth for a seldom-used forest road. It goes up the side of some almost vertical canyon walls. It's kind of nerve-wracking to look at the precipitous drop on your left as you drive along. The road ends at an old stock pen at the border of the Mazatzal Wilderness.

View of Mt. Ord. The forest on that side of the Beeline Highway is closed.

There are agave flowers all over the place.

I was hoping to get some nice cloud pictures, but the clouds weren't very photogenic. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_07_02

A gloomy day

2011-06-02T20:14:00.000-07:00

It wasn't very hot on Wednesday so I went for a hike. It wasn't hot because it was very cloudy. The wind had also calmed down, which wasn't such a good thing.

I'm going that way, because I've never been over there.

I didn't stay out there too long because Lauren texted me while I was out there and said she was cooking dinner. Didn't want to miss that.

I've followed that road to its end a couple of times.

I found what looks like a salt lick. I suppose somebody put it out there to attract deer. I wonder if that's legal in a national forest.

Salt lick?

I went to the top of a small hill and enjoyed the breeze up there for a few minutes before heading home. It was really gnatty. There was barely enough of a breeze to keep them out of my face. They kept doing kamikaze's into my eyes. That's really annoying. I think I'll carry the electric fly swatter next time I'm out there. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_06_01

Someplace new

2011-05-30T14:29:00.001-07:00

The weather was beautiful yesterday, and I hadn't been hiking for a couple of weeks. Still, I had trouble thinking of a place to go. You would think I'd be ready to go anywhere, but if I couldn't think of someplace new, I didn't want to go. Well, there's certainly a lot of territory I haven't covered near here. I finally decided to walk along a ridge near Fish Creek Hill. I thought that I might be able to get some nice canyon pictures from there.

I'm headed in that general direction.

I went by Canyon Lake on the way and that place was packed. There were vehicles parked in any available spot along the road. I started to worry that I would be caught in a huge traffic jam on the way home. I kept going, though. There were even more people than usual at the rest stop at the top of Fish Creek Hill. The road is dirt out there and the washboard was pretty bad and it was full of pits but that didn't seem to be keeping anybody away. When I started walking out along the ridge, I could see a couple sitting in lawn chairs overlooking the side canyon between me and them. At first I thought that seemed a little strange, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea. You could enjoy the beautiful scenery and watch buzzards and hawks. It would be kind of like sitting on the beach, but without the water.

At the beach, without the beach.

I didn't quite get the view of the canyon that I had hoped for, but it was still a nice view. I made a panorama of the view from the end of the ridge and put a scaled down version on Panoramio. Click here to see that picture. Click on the picture there to see it full size. I'm thinking that maybe I should have made that picture an HDRI. If you look in the right spot in that picture, you can see the couple in their lawn chairs.

Most of the cars were still parked at the lake when I went by there on the way home, so traffic wasn't bad. I've decided I don't want to get on the roads today and tangle with the crowds coming home from Memorial Day trips, though. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_05_29

On a treasure hunt

2011-05-16T21:37:00.001-07:00

I was wandering around somewhere on the web a few months ago and ran across a short blurb about the Forest Service looking for some volunteers with cameras to help with a research project. I sent an email to the person in charge and kind of forgot about it because she was too busy to respond for a couple of months. I finally met with her a couple of weeks ago and she gave me my first assignment. She gave me a notebook with maps and descriptions and sample photos, and my task was to go to the exact locations at which the initial pictures had been taken and take updated pictures from exactly the same spots covering exactly the same scenes. Sounds simple. I should have listened more carefully to the description of where to turn off of Cherry Creek road, though. I spent an hour on the wrong road. I enjoyed being on the wrong road, but by the time I got to the right place it was too late to get good pictures.

I came across this while I was on the wrong road.

It probably wouldn't have helped much if I had gotten to the right place an hour sooner, though. The maps are called treasure maps for a reason. The reference pictures were taken in 1997 or 2003. For that reason, I didn't think I could rely on trees looking the same, or even being there any more. I looked for large boulders in the pictures to use as a reference. I walked slowly down the creek (Oak Creek, BTW) trying to follow descriptions and looking for recognizable boulders. I went beyond where the last one should have been without finding any of the 5 that were there.

Much of the hike was easy walking like this, but there was also some scrambling over boulders.

Some reference pictures seem to have nothing but vegetation in them. They're going to be hard to find. I looked for big boulders, thinking that they shouldn't have changed much in 14 years. I continued to look as I headed back to the truck. At one point I saw a stack of rocks that looked a little familiar. I moved to the left and recognized a view from Photo Point #5. Finally. I knew it was the right spot, but some things still didn't look right. As I looked at the pictures last night, I saw that a large boulder that I was looking for on the ground was now half buried and had another large boulder in front of it. Wow, some big stuff has been moved around in the past few years. It was too dark in the canyon to get good pictures, but now I have a reference point. From there I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find the rest of the Photo Points the next time I'm out there.

I also found this. It was nice of him to pose for pictures. I saw another, lighter colored one but it hid under a rock.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_05_15

203A

2011-05-09T14:58:00.000-07:00

I was talking to a forest ranger last week who told me that I ought to check out 203A. It's on the east side of Roosevelt Lake (where I've been spending a lot of time lately) and goes to the southern border of the Sierra Ancha Wilderness. I was just planning to drive out there. I've been putting some medicine on my face that makes it sensitive to the sun, so I can't be out in the sun much. I tried wearing my hat, but that doesn't provide enough shade, and it hurts my forehead. A lot of the pictures I took out there were very crooked because it hurts my nose to take pictures. I was in a bad mood all day because the medicine makes me irritable. I'm so glad I'm done with that medicine now. But I digress.

As I got on the freeway leaving the house, I could see what looked like smoke near Picketpost Mountain. As I got closer, I could see that there was definitely a fire. There was a dry 20 mph wind from the south, so it was going to spread. It was on the south side of the highway so I was a little concerned about thick smoke over the road. The smoke was not very thick, though. The fire was not very far from from the road. It didn't look like it could get bad enough to force the road to be closed later. Turns out I'm not very good at guessing what fires are going to do.

Smoke from the Picket fire. I couldn't take pictures from the freeway, so I didn't get the actual fire.

203A is in pretty good shape and is not very steep; I never had to lock the axle. There's one narrow stretch with rock on one side and a vertical drop on the other that made me a little nervous, but I didn't encounter any traffic. It looked like I was the only person on that road yesterday.

A narrow stretch of road up ahead. The downhill side doesn't look as steep from back here.

The views were great from up there. That green strip is Coon Creek.

The road ends at the Sierra Ancha Wilderness boundary.

I thought about hanging around until the sun got lower and maybe going for a short hike, but I wasn't feeling too good. Another round of an intestinal virus was going through everybody in the house and it was probably my turn to get it. I thought it might be nice to get to the house before I started having ... well, I won't go into details.

This look fantastic when you're standing there, but the pictures are ho-hum.

Somebody put several piles of rocks here.

There was a line of cars where US 60 leaves the Globe/Miami area. The road was closed near Superior because of the fire. I couldn't go home that way. In Arizona, if a major road is closed, the alternate routes involve a lot of driving. It took me about an hour longer than it should have to get home. I got there just in time, too. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_05_08

Cherry Creek Road

2011-05-01T13:12:00.000-07:00

It wasn't hot in the valley on Saturday but I wanted to see something different, so I went east of Roosevelt Lake again. I wanted to check out Cherry Creek Road, and see how far along it I could drive. I was hoping to go hiking in someplace called Devil's Chasm, if I could find it, but that was a low priority.

Cherry Creek Road wanders into the distance.

Cherry Creek Road is a dirt road. Most of it that I drove on yesterday was in very good condition. Towards my turn-around point it got a little bumpy. Near the beginning were a couple a spots to unload ATVs. I'll have to bring the Ranger out there some time. Also, the road is in Tonto National Forest (I checked the map), but there are a lot of cows out there. I passed several corrals, and there are cattle guards across the road in several places. Maybe you can get away from the cows if you hike into the wilderness areas near there.

There are a lot of side roads. They are official roads with signs and numbers, but they don't show up on my maps. I'm guessing they go short distances to camp sites or something. I'll have to check some of them out in the future.

One of many side roads.

Some side roads go to ranch houses.

There were a few ATVs on the road. I think I saw about 4, which doesn't seem like many considering how nice the weather was.

A typical Arizona story; somebody was flying down the road at too high of a speed for the distance they could see ahead. They came around a corner, saw all this water, and slammed on the brakes. At least they stayed on the road.

Cherry Creek seems to have a lot of water flowing.

As the sun got lower, it got harder to see through all the bug guts on my windshield. I had been avoiding trying to clean them off because I was afraid they would just get smeared around and make a bigger mess. I finally decided that I had to try it, though. After a few squirts, the window was actually cleaner. Just then, a truck came hurrying up the hill towards me. The road was narrow and I moved over as far as I could. I glanced over as the truck zoomed past. Not only did the driver look perturbed at having to share his road, but his windshield was wet. At first, I thought that it was an amazing coincidence that we had decided to clean our windshields at the same time. Then I rounded the corner and saw that the road crossed Cherry Creek again. His windshield was wet because he had hit the water going at least 25 mph. I wish I had been there a few seconds earlier.

On the other side of that crossing, the condition of the road deteriorated. I had to slow down quite a bit. The road also climbed quite a bit above Cherry Creek. This area reminded me of being in the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park. That is, until the cows mooed.

Reminds me of the Chisos Mountains.

Not too far beyond that last picture, the road heads a short distance up a side canyon. It enters a beautiful, dark, wooded area. It looked like the ideal campsite, if you're going to camp right next to a road. I wanted to take pictures but there were people camped there. I was moving slowly along and when I glanced ahead, I saw that I was headed down a steep section of road that got steeper before it crossed a creek. If I had to come back this way, I didn't think I could make it up that steep part with wet tires. I tried to back up but a tire spun. I locked the axle and made a little progress, but the road curved and the truck doesn't like to turn with the axle locked. I spun the tires some more. What a noob. By now the campers were talking about what was happening down on the road. A young man stood on a rock and offered some advice. He said his Taco would easily make it up that slope with the axle locked, so I didn't have anything to worry about and I should go for it. I told him I would try it some other time. I should have asked it they minded if I took pictures of the campsite while we were talking, but I was too embarrassed about spinning my tires to think of that. Only noobs and teenagers spin their tires.

The good thing about having turned back is that it's going to bug me until I go back, so I'll go back sooner rather than later. I'll start at the other end of Cherry Creek Road next time.

On the way back, I decided to check out one of the side roads. It was rough, so it was slow-going. Also, it slowly got steeper until I just couldn't make forward progress. I had to back up a long way before I could turn around. My neck still hurts. Sometimes I think about getting a 4-wheel drive truck, but my Taco is just getting broken in. It doesn't even have 150,000 miles on it yet.

This is 2906.

I was driving back at sunset, again.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_04_30

Parker Canyon

2011-04-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what the official name is, but Parker Creek flows through it and people call it Parker Canyon, so I guess I will, too. I was near there about 6 years ago and vaguely remembered some nice scenery. I also remembered traveling for many miles on a dirt road with severe washboard. A lot of people that drive on roads like that go as fast as they think they can (which is actually faster than they safely can, which I believe is one of the reason so many vehicles go off cliffs in Arizona) because it makes the washboard less annoying. Mythbusters proved that actually works. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. I was looking at the area east of Roosevelt lake (long story, let's not get sidetracked again) and saw a few pictures of a scenic canyon. I decided that I needed to go check it out.

A canyon before Parker Canyon. It was a little hazy.

When I turned onto 288, I was surprised to see that it was paved. I didn't expect the pavement to last long and sure enough, after a couple of miles I saw a sign saying that the pavement would end in 500 feet. But it didn't. It was paved all the way to the turn off for Parker Canyon (NF488).

NF488 goes along the right side of Parker Canyon.

It turns out that it's difficult to see into most of Parker Canyon. At some places along the rim I was sure I could hear a waterfall below, but I couldn't get to a place where I could see it. Part of the reason was the way the canyon twists and turns but probably the main reason was because the closest I could make myself get to the edge was about 8 feet.

Notice how the canyon walls are pretty much vertical. Knowing that the walls on my side were probably the same, I just couldn't make myself walk right up to the edge.

Maybe I should have sat down and scooted up to the edge. Or maybe not. I kept thinking that the rock on the edge looked like it was about to break away. Heights only seem to bother me when I'm standing on a cliff somewhere. Anyway, I walked a long way trying to find a view into the canyon. I think the best view might be from inside the canyon, though. I talked to a couple that were walking back to their car after hiking down the canyon. They said that there are waterfalls in the canyon. They also said that there are 7 rappels from the top of the canyon to where they came out.

I found a few places with a nice view.

There were other places I wanted to see, but I spent much more time than I had planned at Parker Canyon. The sun was about to set by the time I started to leave, which made for some pictures that I like.

That's Four Peaks on the horizon and Roosevelt Lake in the middle.

I made a short video since pictures don't do a very good job, but the video doesn't either. Turn your volume down; the wind is really noisy.

I think I'll be exploring more out there this summer when it gets too hot to hike in the valley. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_04_23

Return to White Canyon

2011-04-18T19:08:00.000-07:00

I had gone hiking in White Canyon for the first time about a year ago. There was a lot of water flowing through the canyon and in other areas near there. I made the comment that I would have to return in the summer and see if the water was still flowing. I did try to do that last summer, but the "road" had deteriorated and I couldn't park very close. I had parked about 0.8 mile away when I hiked there, and that extra distance wore me out. I couldn't get closer than about 1.2 miles as the road deteriorated and I'm just too lazy to walk that far, especially when it's hot.

I'm taking a long time to get to the point, and I'm not there yet. Sorry. On Friday evening I was trying to decide where to hike the next day (yes, I do actually plan ahead sometimes). I was looking at Google Earth and saw what looked like a road or trail going up to the top of a ridge. The view might be nice from up there, and I would get to see what was in the canyon on the other side without having to climb over boulders or push through shrubbery. And yes, I would rather walk up a 500 foot high ridge than climb over dozens of waist-high boulders.

I charged my batteries, ate lots of lunch, loaded up on water, and headed out. As I approached White Canyon, I could see the road going up the side of the ridge In one spot there was enough dirt piled on the slope that it looked like there could be an old mine up there. Could be interesting. In the satellite view, the road or trail looked like if faded away by the time it got close to the main road. I drove to where I thought I would need to start climbing and it looked like the first 50 feet or so would be very steep and difficult. I kept driving, looking for an easier spot to start. I think 2011 must be the year for bulldozing dirt roads, though, because this one was in much better shape than it had been the last time I was on it. I decided to keep driving and see how far I could get before I climbed the ridge.

I easily cruised past the large cottonwood where I had gotten a huge boulder stuck in my wheel well before. I could have hiked about a mile on the energy I burned up getting that boulder out from under my truck so I could move again. Oh, and I had to do that while standing in flowing water. The spring was dry now though. When I got to the next obstacle, which used to have black tire marks on it from all the people struggling to get over it, it was barely a bump now. I started thinking that I might be able to hike in White Canyon again. The road was remarkably smooth all the way to the entrance to the wilderness area. I had to park a quarter mile away because the final descent is too steep for me to drive back up, but it's an easy quarter mile to walk.

This part of the road might be too steep for me to drive up, but look how close I am!

So far, on the drive, I had not seen any water in places that I was used to seeing it. I had read somewhere that water was always flowing in White Canyon, but I couldn't find it. Anyway, I started up the canyon at about 2:30 and the temperature was in the mid 90's. I stopped in shade whenever I could find it, but there wasn't much.

I eventually came to a puddle. The water didn't look like anything I wanted to drink, or even get on me. It looked stagnant.

The first puddle.

I don't remember seeing this rock column before. It's hard to see unless the lighting is just right. I'll have to climb up there some time to get a better look.

I got to a spot where the canyon floor is solid rock, and there I found flowing water. It emerged from the gravel in a pool upstream and vanished again in a pool on the downstream end. I suppose it looked drinkable as long as you didn't think too much about the people wading in it. It looked very inviting after stumbling over river rocks in the heat. So maybe there is water here year round. It's just hidden part of the time.

A family enjoying the cool water. These are the only people I encountered on this hike.

Not only had the road been bulldozed, but the trail had been marked with cairns. And not only was it marked, but somebody had cut most of the branches out of the way. I was back at the point where I'd had to turn back before in no time. I found an easy path around the boulders that had stopped me back then. I think I may not have been able to get to that path last time because of all the water. Not much further upstream, though, I encountered more truck-sized boulders. I found my way around several of these before I decided that it was getting late enough that I should turn back.

I made a short video of one of the boulder obstacles, from the inside.

Up until I started back, I had taken only 1 or 2 HDRIs. I figured there were so few shadows, I didn't need that. It turns out that there were a couple of places with very bright rocks where I should have used it. I was in the shadow of the western canyon wall on the way back, though, so I wound up taking more HDRIs then.

I like the way this turned out.

I was past most of the interesting scenery and was thinking about how there are bears and bighorn sheep in that area and how I should have been looking around more for the sheep (and probably the bears) when something to my left moved and hissed. I must have startled it for it to jump like it did. It was a Gila Monster, the third one I've seen in 8 years of wandering the desert. I took a bunch of pictures. I think it was too dark right there for video. Anyway, that was the perfect finish to a very enjoyable hike.

Gila Monster sniffing the air.

There's beautiful scenery everywhere you turn out there. Click below to see pictures of a little bit of it.

White_Canyon_2011_04_16

Oops, already been there

2011-04-14T20:44:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, not only was I caught up on my chores around the house, but I also got home from work in time to go for a hike. I headed towards Canyon Lake, not too sure where I would go. I picked a place to park and wandered off. When I started out, I was thinking that I was headed up a canyon I hadn't explored before and wondered why I hadn't. Before too long, though, it started to look familiar.

I was sure I had seen this before.

I had been up there about a year ago. I had carefully planned that hike. I went up there because I wanted to get pictures of the view to the east. Once I realized I had been there before, I lost interest in doing a lot of climbing. After all, I was already getting tired.

Ocotillo with flowers.

Instead of continuing to climb, I decided to get some pictures of the flowers. There don't seem to be a lot this year. I've seen hardly any blue lupines or Mexican gold poppies. There are some pretty ones, though.

There are going to be some nice agave flowers soon. I need to get some pictures of those this year.

Ocotillo flowers.

The first prickly pear flower I've seen this year.

Maybe I should hang a map on the wall and draw all of my hikes on it. You'd think I'd be able to use all the pictures I have on Google Earth for that purpose, but the ones I took up there before don't seem to be on Google Earth. Some day when I'm feeling energetic I'll search through my Panoramio pictures to see if I've uploaded any of that area. For now, click below to see the pictures from Wednesday.

2011_04_13

1900

2011-04-03T19:59:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it's a Forest Road or what. All the sign says is "1900". Can't find a name on maps, or even 1900. It turns off of Hewitt Canyon road. Yes, I went east of town before the Renaissance Festival was over. We got an early start and avoided the renaissance jam.

Roblas Butte, which can also be seen from Hewitt Canyon road.

I was also hoping it would be a little cooler in the morning, and I think it was. I think it got a little too warm for Sweetums, but there was a very nice breeze.

There are lots of pretty rocks and plants out there.

It was nice being on one of the less-traveled roads out there. We saw very little traffic. At one point, I had stopped to get some pictures and Suzanne pointed out that she could hear splashing water. We were next to a wash and there was water flowing in it. The water was coming from Quail Spring and splashing into a small pool.

Water from Quail Spring.

Another hole in a rock.

A lot of the saguaros in this area look like they have baggy skin.

Fishhook pincushion cactus flowers. I usually run across these late in the day when they've closed up.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_04_03

A trip to the Rolls

2011-03-31T19:31:00.002-07:00

Skid sounded bored on Sunday, so I suggested that we go riding. I wanted to go someplace east of town, but the Renaissance Fair isn't over yet, so we went to the Rolls.

I was worried that it might be hot, especially since we started out early in the afternoon. I put the top on the Ranger, though, and it was comfortably cool in the shade.

The ground was carpeted with tiny yellow flowers.

As I was getting ready to leave the parking area, I couldn't find my GPS holder. I suppose I could have run with batteries and stuck the receiver in my pocket, but I decided to just not mess with it. As a consequence, the pictures are geotagged.

Scenic views about.

Near Brownie tank we found a smashed vehicle. Hard to tell what it was. That was the most exciting part of the ride for Alex.

All we did was sit all day, but I got kind of worn out by all the bouncing around. I think Skid did, too. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_03_27

Sandy and Poopeck

2011-03-27T09:57:00.000-07:00

No, I didn't miss-spell poop-deck, but we'll get to that later.

A couple of years ago, I had hiked to a spot on the Salt River bank that was covered with river rocks and as I stood there, dozens of spiders came up from between the rocks. I got a few pictures of them. I decided to go back there to see the spiders again.

I followed vehicle tracks most of the way this time.

There are lots of vehicle tracks over there. The public isn't allowed to drive there, and the public doesn't drive there. I suppose all the tracks are from sheriff's vehicles, game warden's vehicles, emergency vehicles, etc. This is where drunks come to test their survival skills by seeing if they can sit in an inner tube while if floats down the river. It's a challenging task and several drown every year. It's too early in the year for that now, thank goodness. The river is still very low, too.

I did find a few spiders. Maybe it's still early in the year for them, too. I saw very little trash. I think some volunteer group must have cleaned up out there recently.

I saw a few cranes. There's one in this picture. Didn't get any good pictures of them.

I think Sandy and Poopeck were somebody's pets. Their graves were at the edge of a wash. I wonder what it's like trying to dig a hole out there. Most of the ground is very rocky. I suppose the graves were near the bottom of the wash because of the sandy soil there.

Sandy and Poopeck.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_03_26

Bulldog Canyon and lunatics

2011-03-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

Several people from work had planned to spend a weekend in Bulldog Canyon OHV area this past weekend. I figured I would join them during the day but when I'm that close to home, I'd just as soon spend the night in my nice, soft bed.

A view of the Supes from near the campsite.

The campsite.

On Saturday afternoon I was at the camp site and Vincenzo was going to go for a hike. I asked if I could go along and then I told him where we should go. Gee, that doesn't seem polite. Well, I suggested a place to go and he was agreeable. A few weeks ago, I had been on top of a hill in the same area and had seen a house foundation. The camp was about due south of where I thought I remembered the foundation being, so we headed north to see if we could find the foundation.

We found the foundation without too much difficulty.

We found the foundation, and we found out that it was a popular place for target practice. The "marksmen" had left their targets (aka trash) all over the place. You could hardly see the dirt around the foundation for all the shells. Vincenzo was disgusted and I felt bad for taking him over there. Still, it was a nice hike. I didn't take a lot of pictures because I was trying to keep up with Vincenzo.

We also found a small exploratory "mine".

We sat around the campfire telling stories and cooking for a while. Jay has some very interesting stories, many of which involve aliens. Yes, this is Arizona, but he wasn't talking about citizens of Mexico. He was talking about the kind from other planets. He also talked about witches because of the full moon that night, which coincided with the equinox and also happened to be occurring when the moon was at the point in its orbit when it's closest to the earth. Whenever a vehicle passed by the camp, he told us to check and see if they were carrying live goats and if so, we needed to be careful in case they wanted to add a human sacrifice. This was all very entertaining, but I didn't expect to see anybody out there for the rising of the full moon. Boy, was I wrong. I headed for the truck just before sunset, since it was getting a little coolish. I was driving the Ranger and the truck was at the Packsaddle entrance. I got the Ranger loaded up and headed out on what I expected to be a deserted road. I came over the first small hill and there were cars everywhere. It's bad enough trying to dodge potholes along that road, but I also had to dodge cars and lunatics. Yes, they were all out there to watch and get pictures of the moon rise. So far, Skid is the only person that has laughed at my lunatic joke. Either people don't get it or it isn't very funny. Probably the latter. I would have taken pictures of them but it was dark. I wanted to get some pictures of the moon rising over the Superstition Mountains but there was no place to park where the view was the best, or even where it was bad. That's OK. I'll go get my picture in 27 days. Click the two things below to see what pictures I did get.

BC_2011_03_18

BC_2011_03_19

A shorter hike

2011-03-14T20:43:00.001-07:00

Sunday was another beautiful day so I had to get out and do something. My ankles were still a little achy from Saturday's hike. I didn't want to hike a long way. I decided to climb something.

My original plan was to climb this, maybe from this side (looks doable from here), maybe from the other side.

As I got closer to what I planned to climb, it looked less climbable. Maybe I could climb it from the other side. When I got over there, that side looked pretty steep, too. Well, I didn't go out there to struggle. I kept walking down the wash, looking for something else to climb. I got almost to the rock wall I climbed about a year ago before I found a gentle slope and started up. I didn't care if I got to the top of anything. I just wanted to climb for a while.

I'm going in that direction.

If you look closely at that last picture, you'll see that the rocks at the top of the cliff are black. Everything below them is very light colored rock. Everything except for the rocks that had fallen from up there, that is. Any spot that was level enough that pebbles up to refrigerator size boulders would stop rolling was littered with black rocks. I know that the dark rocks weren't released from the light rock by weathering because there are no dark rocks embedded in the light rock. So why all this discussion about the black rocks? Because you can tell that some of them have been sitting in the same place for a very long time. I don't know how fast that light rock erodes in the desert, but I would bet that some of those rocks have been sitting where they are for at least hundreds of years.

A prime example of a rock that has been in one place so long that the rock under it has eroded away to just a small pedestal.

I don't know what eroded the light rock away, either. You might think that rain falling could easily leave the pedestal. If that was the only cause of erosion, then those rocks have probably been sitting there for thousands of years.

I got high enough to have a view of the Superstition Mountains. I climbed around on that rock in the foreground when I hiked up to Richard's Arch a few weeks ago.

Much of the light rock is covered with thin soil and moss. The moss could grow right up to the black rocks but of course could not grow under them. I believe the moss helps break down the light rock into soil. As it "ate" away at the light rock at the edges of black rocks, it was able to undercut the black rocks and eventually leave the black rock on a pedestal. There is no moss around the black rocks in my pictures, though. Well, there are large areas where the rock is bare. I think cattle could have tromped around up there (there is a stock tank nearby, and barbed wire fence) and their weight would have broken up the fragile moss and soil, making it susceptible to erosion by rain. The pedestals are created by plants converting the light rock to soil and revealed by soil erosion caused by cattle brought here by Europeans. Couldn't deer have damaged the soil? Well, I rarely see deer footprints anywhere but in sandy washes (they are lighter) and I don't think deer are as concentrated as cattle tend to be. The number of deer would have been kept in check by mountain lions and wolves, but those predators were wiped out to protect cattle. I may be full of beans, but I think it's an interesting idea.

Down there is the rock wall I climbed on a very warm day last summer.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

BC_2011_03_13

In the middle of nowhere

2011-03-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

There are places in Bulldog Canyon OHV area that look like they would be interesting to explore, but I haven't been there yet because they are hard to get to. There are also places I haven't explored because they look boring. I didn't want to do a lot of climbing yesterday, so I went to one of the places that looked like it would be boring. It's a large, mostly flat area. Well, flat compared to mountains. I studied the area on Google Earth and the most interesting thing I could see there was a small patch of light colored ground. I've looked into such things in the past and sometimes they turn out to be old mines, so that would be my destination. I even saved the coordinates in my PN-40 in case I had trouble finding it.

I knew there would be plenty to get pictures of out there.

As I started out, the desert smelled wonderful. It still had a little bit of that fresh creosote odor from the rain a couple of weeks ago. There was also something sweet mixed in with it. I didn't see many flowers, though. As I walked by a paloverde the sweet smell was really strong. This paloverde had a lot of parasites (similar to mistletoe) in it. The parasites were covered in flowers almost too small to see. I think that's where the sweet fragrance originated.

Paloverde full of parasites.

I came across some light patches of soil that I had seen in Google Earth. It was just different colored rock. Not too exciting. They didn't stand out as much as the one I was headed for, though.

Light colored rock.

I climbed a small hill and thought I could see my destination. It didn't look very interesting from the hill, but I had to be sure.

Looks like just another patch of light colored rock.

It turns out that it was mildly interesting. Somebody had dug a hole there and spread the light rock around, which is why it stands out in Google Earth. The hole is about 6 feet deep at its deepest part. The hole is why the center to the light patch looks dark on Google Earth.

A hole in the ground.

It isn't very deep.

I climbed some hills north of the hole to check out the view and found a Y saguaro. These are supposedly rare but I seem to find them all over the place. They aren't as rare as crested saguaros.

A Y saguaro.

I took lots of pictures of saguaros and sticks on this hike. I was trying to be selective about what I photographed, but everywhere I looked there was something pretty. It was a very enjoyable hike.

I saw tiny flowers scattered here and there, and about 5 Mexican Gold Poppies. I had read in the paper that the rain didn't fall at the right time for good spring flowers and so far that seems to be the case. Click below to see all of the pictures.

BC_2011_03_12

Saguaros

2011-03-11T20:47:00.000-07:00

As you drive downhill on Usery Pass road towards Bush Highway, you often see vehicles parked along the side of the road. It doesn't look especially interesting on either side of the road, but I thought there must be something there to attract all those people. Silly me. I went for a short hike over there yesterday and now I know why so many people stop over there.

A clue.

What you see in the picture above is a capacitor. It came out of a TV. No, people don't go out there to watch TV. They go out there to shoot TVs. They also shoot their empty beer cans and bottles and lots of other trash. Mystery solved. BTW, I know the cap came from a TV because I also found the yoke off the tube.

A saguaro.

There are also large saguaros in that area. Surprisingly, they are not shot up. I guess people bring enough trash to shoot out there that they don't have to resort to shooting saguaros. When I left the truck, I was thinking that I wouldn't be taking many pictures. I wound up taking a lot of pictures of saguaros, though.

I also took pictures of a large ocotillo.

Stewart Mountain.

Took pictures of some sticks, too.

Saguaros.

Large saguaro.

It seems very green out there.

I'm going to go out there again. I need to start out a little further north, to avoid a lot of the pointless ups and downs around Lone Mountain. I may find something intriguing yet. Click below to see all of the pictures.

BC_2011_03_10

Smoother roads in Bulldog Canyon

2011-03-07T21:17:00.000-07:00

Lindsey and Jon have been wanting to go for a ride in the Ranger. On Sunday, schedules and weather finally worked out so we could do that. I wanted to go someplace scenic, so we went to Bulldog Canyon.

This hole in the ground has a concrete side with re-bar steps in it.

Lindsey wanted to climb up to this arch. Looks a little risky to me.

We thought she would stop when she got here, but she kept climbing, with both Jon and me telling her to stop. She finally decided it was too risky and came back down. It was so strange. It's the guys that are supposed to be doing stupid stuff, not the girl.

The bulldozer is still working on the roads in Bulldog Canyon. It has smoothed 1356 from where Lindsey went climbing west to where it meets 10. The entire length of 10 has now been bulldozed. We took 10 down to 3554 and I was amazed at how fast I could travel on that road. Lindsey got tired of me saying, "This is so smoooooth!". Oh, if you are interested in knowing where all the roads are, check my map of Bulldog Canyon.

Lindsey wanted to stop by the Ring Bearer's cache. She and I accidentally found it back in 2006, when she used to go on hikes with me. It's still there, and a lot more people have found it. It's a little surprising how many people have wandered up there.

People have built a fire ring and other stone walls now. I wonder if the heart shape (upside down from this angle) is intentional or an accident.

Lindsey makes a new entry in the log book. I wonder what she wrote.

On the way back to the truck, a coyote trotted across the road in front of us. It stopped in plain sight and turned to look at us. I stopped and grabbed my camera and it actually stood there while I took a few pictures. I was sure the sight of a camera would cause it to bolt.

Coyote posing for pictures.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

BC_2011_03_06

More snow

2011-03-01T21:28:00.000-07:00

I had been reading the weather forecasts last week. I knew there was going to be snow. Some forecasts said it would be as low as 2500 feet. Still, on Sunday, after listing to rain all night, I didn't think about going to look for snow. Just before noon, though, I got a call from somebody saying that I should take a look at the Superstition Mountains. So I grabbed my backpack and my camera bag and headed out the door. Forgot to eat lunch. Sure enough, there was quite a bit of snow on the Superstitions. There was also a very large, very dark, very ominous looking cloud coming from the northwest that was dumping something (maybe more snow) on the Flatiron, at the western end of the mountains. I probably should have taken a picture, but I don't like taking pictures in town. Power lines and light poles in my pictures really annoy me, so I try to avoid them.

I drove all the way out to the Hieroglyphic Canyon trailhead, even though I knew I would be too close to the mountains to get good pictures. I figured that I probably had enough pictures of the Superstitions with snow on them and I just wanted to look around. Of course, I took pictures, too.

The view from the Hieroglyphic Canyon trailhead. The Flatiron, and the black cloud over it, are out of view to the left. It's getting dark here, though. Damp snowflakes were hitting me before I left.

It looked a little sunnier to the east, and I could see a lot of snow on the mountains in that direction, so that's where I went. D**n the Renaissance Fair traffic and full speed ahead. Actually, I think a lot of people decided that it wasn't a good day to go to the fair. There wasn't much traffic at all.

I've always wanted to get a good picture of Picketpost Mountain from the west. With snow on it and the sun peeking through the clouds now and then, it would make a nice picture. The trouble is, there isn't any place to park with a good view of the mountain. I don't like the idea of parking on freeway shoulders unless it is absolutely necessary. I found a place to get a hundred feet or so off the road (and almost got stuck in the mud) but couldn't see the mountain. I was hoping I could after climbing a small hill, though. Before I started out, I looked back at the storm. I had gotten a little ahead of it, but now it was catching up with me again. I would have to hurry. I moved quickly to the top without taking any pictures of all the cool stuff I saw on the way up. Well, OK, I took a picture of a saguaro skeleton with snow on it. On the way up, I kept hoping that I wouldn't see another hill between me and Picketpost when I got to the top.

Not a bad view of Picketpost, but the clouds are catching up with me; no sun on the mountain.

Superior. The dark band above it is Apache Leap.

While I was on top of the hill taking pictures, the wind picked up. I had made sure I had at least one poncho with me before I left the house, but being caught in a storm when it's in the 30's wouldn't be fun. I hurried back to the truck and drove on in to Superior.

The storm approaches.

The rest stop in Superior. This is a lot of snow by Valley of the Sun standards.

I was too chicken to continue going east from Superior. The road climbs a thousand feet and I didn't want to drive on any snow, so I headed south on 177.

Looking back towards Superior from 177. The mountains north of it are hidden behind a wall of white.

Snow on saguaros.

A non-HDRI shows how dark it is to the north.

177 climbs gradually for a few miles, then climbs steeply to a pass. There are truck safety pullouts at the top on both sides of the pass, and each had a few people out looking at the snow. I stopped at both to take some pictures and was pelted by tiny balls of snow. I suppose there's some technical name for that kind of snow but I see snow so seldom I'm not going to bother looking it up.

It was snowing in front of me and behind me as I drove south.

A small open-pit mine made slightly less ugly by the snow.

Snow capped saguaros. That seems so out of place, kind of like a bikini at McMurdo Sound.

Snow at the mountain pass. I also took a picture of these people with their camera so they could all be in the picture.

On the south side of the pass, the road descends into the Gila river valley. Of course, there was no snow down there. I went a very short distance down Battle Ax road and climbed a small hill there to get some pictures. The clouds were clearing by then but there was a strong breeze from the north. I stood at the top of the hill for a couple of minutes taking pictures of the mountain to the east and was a little scared when I quit and it felt like the left side of my face had frozen into the goofy expression I make when I'm taking a picture. It thawed quickly when I got out of the wind. Whew.

That cloud looked awesome.

Landscapes look great in the clear winter air. The edges of these clouds look strange. I wonder if it's an HDRI artifact. I'll have to check the original pictures when my NAS isn't so busy (long story).

The wet ground and clear air made the Ray mine look especially colorful.

By the time I started back north, it was clearing over Superior. It was such a nice day, I decided to go east on 60 after all. The road was heavily traveled and completely clear.

Clear sky towards Superior.

60 climbs a canyon east of Superior, and it's very scenic there. There's a tunnel at the beginning of the climb where I've always wanted to take some pictures but have never stopped. I stopped this time, though, since I wasn't in a hurry to get someplace else.

At the uphill end of the tunnel.

The tunnel.

The area at the top of the canyon is called Oak Flat. In such rugged terrain, flat areas are rare and they always seem to have a name. Being flat, it had lots of snow and also lots of people playing in it. I went past there on Magma Mine road and took some pictures of snow on all the rocks. I kept thinking I needed to work on being more artistic with my pictures of the snow instead of just showing what was there, but my pictures are rarely, if ever, artistic, so I don't know why I kept thinking that.

An almost artistic picture of snow on a rock.

This almost looks a little artistic.

By the time I got back to the western side of Picketpost Mountain, the sun was shining on it and the snow was quickly melting. I took a few pictures from the road to the Picketpost Mountain trailhead.

It didn't take long for the snow to melt.

The sky was clear over the Supes when I got back there, and there was just a thin line of snow at the very top. I thought about getting some pictures from Silly Mountain, but by then I was way too hungry. I ate all the beef jerky in my backpack but it just wasn't very filling. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_02_27

A solitary hiker

2011-02-20T10:21:00.000-07:00

The forecast for the weekend was rain. I got home from work at a reasonable time on Thursday and decided I had better take advantage of the sunshine. As usual, I left the house not knowing where I would end up. The weekend before I had found that 10 through Bulldog Canyon OHV area had been bulldozed and was *much* smoother than it used to be. Paloverdes had even been trimmed so they wouldn't give your vehicle that "Arizona pin-striping". I still wasn't able to drive the length of it in my truck. I got to a steep, uphill corner and just couldn't climb it; it's hard to get around curves with the axle locked. So I decided to check it out from the other direction, starting at the Wolverine Pass entrance.

I didn't go very far from that direction, though. I got to a rough downhill section covered with the marks of burning tires and with rocks piled to smooth out the rough spots and figured I would never climb it, so I had better not descend. I parked near there and headed for a small hill to check out the view.

I'll climb up there.

As I walked along the road towards the hill, I found where the bulldozer had stopped. It was less that 0.1 mile from the rough spot that stopped me. Darn it.

Where the bulldozer stopped.

As I walked along the freshly bulldozed road, I saw a single set of footprints. You always hear that you shouldn't hike alone, but a lot of people do it. There shouldn't be a problem with that as long as you don't do anything stupid. I guess having somebody with you might keep you from doing something stupid. Some people would inspired to new heights of stupidity by an audience, though ("Hey, watch this!").

A view of the Supes from the side of the hill.

One of the main reasons I hike alone is because I usually don't know when or where I'm going until I'm on my way. I enjoy showing people the beauty of the Sonoran desert. When I take somebody out with me, though, I worry about their comfort and if they are having fun and whether I am talking too much or too little. I can't relax if I have somebody with me, but that's just me.

I didn't go to the top. It gets too steep up there.

Anyway, I was thinking about solitary hiking and the rules I try to follow to stay safe and wondering if other solitary hikers have similar rules for themselves and would solitary hikers be interested in sharing their experiences and maybe we could form a club and even go on hikes together and ... wait, that's not solitary hiking any more. One of the other reasons I hike alone is because I enjoy the solitude, and that's probably true for most solitary hikers. It isn't that we don't like to be around people (well, maybe some don't), but it's just nice to be alone with your thoughts now and then.

Another view of the Supes.

I stood at a level spot on the side of the hill, enjoying the view and taking pictures. I looked down at the road and there was a solitary hiker heading into the desert. I wondered if he noticed what was now two sets of footprints in the dust of the road. I wondered if he would leave the road and go explore a secluded canyon or a lonely hill. I felt a connection to him and thought about saying "Hello" and waving, but because of that connection I decided not to spoil his solitude, and slipped quietly down the far side of the hill and wandered slowly back to the truck.

A solitary hiker.

I don't think a club for solitary hikers would ever get off the ground. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_02_17

Oops, wrong canyon

2011-02-13T11:03:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I had followed a wash downstream into a very scenic canyon in Bulldog Canyon. I have been planning to hike up that canyon from the other end. Yesterday, I made my first attempt.

There are still a few puddles out there.

I wanted Sweetums to go with me, and to stay with the Ranger while I hiked. I promised her that the Ranger would be parked in shade, but she was still worried about being hot. It was in the low 70's in town, which felt good to me, but most people are hot when I'm comfortable. She relented and went with me.

The view at the start.

I should have checked a map before I set out. I thought I knew which side canyon I wanted, but I was wrong. I knew I was wrong as soon as I started up it because it was way too narrow. It looked scenic, though, so I kept going.

Looking up the wrong canyon.

I also thought that maybe I could get to the canyon I wanted from this canyon. Silly me. The canyon I was in was narrow and had lots of very large (car size and bigger) boulders. The further I went, the more difficult is became to climb over them. It only took about half an hour to get to a spot that looked too risky to climb over.

Large boulders litter the canyon floor.

A scenic view.

A couple of hawks were flying around above me. I think maybe they were celebrating Valentine's Day.

I didn't want to climb over these boulders. Too risky for a solitary hiker in a narrow canyon (my SPOT may not have been able to get a signal out).

A hollow under the boulders that stopped me.

A spring-fed puddle in the hollow.

A skylight in the hollow.

There were footprints in the sand of that canyon. There must be something interesting further up there. I may have to try it from another angle some day.

When I got back to the Ranger, Sweetums admitted that she was actually cold. She hadn't gotten cold enough to move into the sunshine, though. Click below to see all of the pictures.

BC_2011_02_12

Hoodoos, walls, and who do you think built those walls?

2011-02-06T12:11:00.001-07:00

I've been wanting to take the Ranger out near Apache Leap. Things are changing out there all the time and I didn't know where I might be able to unload, so I drove out there by myself yesterday to check it out. I found a couple of great parking places and also found out the road I planned to explore was much smoother than it was the last time I was out there.

It's been cool out there. There was ice on most of the puddles.

One thing I like about the area is the balanced rocks.

I thought about hiking out to Apache Leap, but it was just a little bit too cool for my liking. Instead I just drove around on some of the easier roads. I found a new road in a canyon I had hiked about a year ago. It seemed strange to be driving through what used to be an isolated area.

The new road goes to this drilling rig site. The rig isn't here yet.

I took pictures of things that I probably have a dozen pictures of already.

I've never taken a picture of this before.

I got out to take some pictures of balanced rocks next to a canyon and was wandering around a little and came across a rock wall. I've seen them in in other places out there. They are built across stream beds. I don't think they are intended to be water dams, though. They are much to porous for that.

Rock wall across the bed of a wash.

I found several of these walls on this day. They are all low walls across the bed of a wash. They all have lots of dirt accumulated behind them.

Another fine wall.

The upstream side of the previous wall, showing all the soil accumulated behind it.

I may have discussed the walls in a previous blog. I don't remember if I said what I believe they are for. I think they were built to catch soil and form areas of deep, rock-free soil in which to grow crops. The ground away from the washes is mostly solid rock with a thin veneer of soil. It would be difficult to raise any crops there. Disturbing that soil would just allow it to erode away in the next rain storm.

I'll have to call the ranger station to find out who built them. I'm guessing that it was native Americans. That's why I'm careful not to disturb them; don't want to damage cultural artifacts.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_02_05

Two for one

2011-02-01T09:14:00.000-07:00

There's a road that goes from near the Boyce Thompson Arboretum up to the Rogers Trough trailhead. I drove a few miles along it last August. It was pretty rough in places and I got a late start, so I didn't go real far. We went back with the Ranger this past weekend. I took a wrong turn so we never got to the trailhead, but that's OK. We saw plenty of interesting stuff.

I thought this was a side road, but it was the road I wanted to be on.

Peachville Mountain. It looks much more impressive in person. Didn't see any peaches.

My PN-40 kept showing that we were passing through evergreen forest. I was looking around for pine trees but finally realized that the evergreens were junipers.

An evergreen forest southern Arizona style.

The mountains in that area are kind of smooth and blah looking. I don't recommend that road for the scenery. We saw a fair amount of traffic, which wasn't surprising considering the perfect weather.

Near where we turned around to head back, I saw a couple of ATVs tucked away out of site. I guess people do ride up there to go hiking. I was thinking about hiking myself. I walked to the top of a small hill and all the breathing made my throat burn. I guess I need to wait until I get over this cold to do much hiking.

The next day we headed out to the so-called box canyon at the end of Price Road, near Florence. I wanted to check out one of the side roads and maybe find the coke ovens (used around 1850 to smelt ore).

The last time we were out there, it seemed that the scenery wasn't as spectacular once we got out of the canyon. On this trip, the road we took went through some beautiful areas. I've looked at a lot of pictures of this area on Google Earth but none showed the great scenery. The vast majority of them are of people in their Jeeps trying to get into or out of impossible situations. I think the program that selects photos for Google Earth must not have been very selective when those pictures were uploaded to Panoramio. Anyway, I took a few pictures to improve coverage of the area.

This is the kind of scenery I like.

Several people had stopped here to enjoy the view. The guys with the dog were looking for the coke ovens, too.

A couple of guys passed us that were looking for the coke ovens, too. We caught up with them a little later. They had given up and turned back. We talked briefly and they decided to follow us, even though I told them that I wasn't sure we were on the right road. Just a little further along the road we came to a great view of the desert to the south. They were glad they went a little further, but they gave up again and turned back.

It was the wrong time of day to get pictures of this.

That pointy peak is called Grayback.

We turned back soon after that, too. The road was rough so progress was slow and it was getting late. We didn't make it to the coke ovens but it was a worthwhile trip.

This section of road is very rough in spots.

I think somebody spun their tires until their Jeep caught on fire here.

Click the two links below to see all of the pictures.

2011_01_29

2011_01_30

Mushroom Rock

2011-01-24T20:45:00.000-07:00

That's what I call it. I don't know if it has an official name. It doesn't on any of my maps. I first saw it about 6 years ago. It looked impossibly far away from the trail. I hiked up to it in late 2005 or early 2006; can't tell from the dates on the pictures. I only took one picture of it from the uphill side and I don't like the way it turned out.

Taken in late 2005 or early 2006. I knew it was going to look bad when I took it, but I didn't have the tools to fix it back then. I estimate that this rock is 30 to 40 feet tall.

On Sunday afternoon I decided I needed to get outside and enjoy the beautiful, sunny day. My ankles were still a little achy from Saturday's hike so I didn't plan to hike, but I took my backpack just in case. At first I thought I might drive out to Superior and see what's happening out there. It's a scenic drive. As I passed through Gold Canyon I decided to drive up Peralta road, and as I drove along that road I decided I would mosey on over to the mushroom rock. I would walk slowly and turn back if my ankles hurt.

It was perfect weather for getting pictures from the uphill side of mushroom rock.

The wind was blowing pretty hard and had blown all the dust out of the valley. The sky was deep blue. I could get great pictures if I could get up to the rock.

Newman Peak was clearly visible. It's 46 miles away.

It was easy to find the mushroom rock. I see it in a lot of my pictures of that side of the Superstition Mountains. My ankles were feeling fine so I started the climb. About half way up I kept thinking that I didn't remember it being this steep. Well, I was younger then. Progress was slow. When I was within less than 500 feet, I saw that I had a deep, steep sided gully to cross or go around. That last 500 feet could take up to half an hour. I checked the time. If I moved as fast on the way back as I did on the way back and started right away, I would get back to the truck half an hour after sunset. It will be cold when the sun sets. As Kenny Whatisname sang, you gotta know when to hold 'em, and know when to fold 'em. I ate a snack and turned back. I didn't reach my goal, but I spent several hours out in a beautiful part of the desert. That's a winner.

Since I wouldn't be able to get a picture from the other side, I made a stereo picture. Crossed eyes method.

Once I was back on the trail, I still didn't want to hurry. I think hurrying is what made my ankles hurt in the first place. Also, the scenery was just too nice to hurry through it.

I like the way this mountain looks.

Soon the setting sun was giving everything a reddish tint. I corrected the white balance in the pictures. The redness you see is what it looked like.

This is what color it was.

When I got back to the truck it was getting dark and was 54 degrees. I suppose that is warm to some people but if it was 70 when you started out, it feels cold. I was putting stuff where it belonged and noticed some message on my PN-40 about not being able to get a position fix. At first I thought I might not have data for the last few hundred feet of the hike but when I downloaded the track, I found out I only had data for the first few hundred feet. I only geotagged pictures that I was able to figure out within a few feet where I was when I took them.

Oh, you might be wondering why we didn't go anywhere in the Ranger this weekend. It's in the shop. During our last outing the "check engine" light came on a couple of times, so I took it in Saturday morning. The mechanic said there had been some trouble with some wiring breaking on that model and they already had a replacement harness. Haven't heard if that's what my problem was yet, though. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_01_23

Entrada del Oro

2011-01-23T11:39:00.000-07:00

I was going to go for a hike somewhere on Saturday afternoon. I just didn't know where. I headed east and was thinking about going somewhere off Peralta road, but I kept going when I got there. There's a small housing development out in the middle of the desert a few miles beyond Peralta road. It's called Entrada del Oro. I decided that it might be a good place to park and go wandering off into the desert. The neighborhood has a playground on the northern end, with a parking lot. I parked there and went wandering. Right away I came across a dirt road going my direction. I thought about going back and finding a way to get to the road and drive out there, but I wanted to walk. The desert is more enjoyable that way. Turns out it's state trust land and I need to get a permit anyway.

N San Mateo Castro Road

I need to go explore over there some day.

There's a nice view of the Superstition Mountains along the road.

Once I got away from the neighborhood, it was quiet out there. It was kind of nice to walk through a mostly flat area of the desert. Without mountains or canyon walls close by, my attention was drawn to the plants around me. I took a lot of pictures of saguaros.

A lonely saguaro.

I followed the road because walking on a road is easier and that allowed me to look around as I walked instead of watching where I was going to put my feet. The road branched a few times and the path I followed ended at a small hill, which was very convenient because I wanted to get a view of the landscape from a little higher up.

The Superstition Mountains from the top of the small hill.

A Photosynth panorama from the top of the hill. It's not 360 degrees because about 100 degrees looked exceedingly boring.

The hill I climbed is on the right.

From the top of the hill, I could see a different road heading in the direction of the neighborhood. One of my solitary hiking rules is "When exploring new areas, go back the way you came", but this looked safe. The area is flat (no surprise cliffs to stop my progress) and landmarks were easily visible in all directions (no chance of getting lost). It was a scenic and uneventful hike back.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_01_22

Dust, pollution, and a rattler

2011-01-18T20:22:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to take Sweetums out Hewitt Canyon Road, all the way to the Roger's Trough trailhead, for years. I knew she wouldn't like the bumpy ride, though, and it usually took me about 3 hours to get all the way up there. We went out there with the Ranger on Monday.

Sweetums found another hole in the rock. At least I don't think I've seen this before. Seems very round.

I found something interesting, too. I think it's a solar powered rain gage.

We parked not very far from a paved road. That means we drove the Ranger on lots of dusty road. I don't know if that is why we got so dusty. I didn't think we drove through very much dust but we were covered by the time we were done. It's thick all over the Ranger. I checked the air filter and it's spotless. I don't know how that works. My nose was full of dust. We really need some bandannas. We saw a large group of ATV riders and they all had dust masks on. They were riding together, so all but the first were riding in a cloud of dust.

The road climbs to the trailhead.

After we had climbed to about 3500 feet, a turn in the road gave us a view back towards the valley. It was shocking. It looked like the valley was covered in a layer of fog, but you can't have fog on a sunny, dry, and warm afternoon in the desert. It had to be the brown cloud. It just looked white from this angle.

That ain't fog on the ground out there.

As we climbed toward the top of the road, I kept thinking that I saw familiar landmarks, but they looked strangely unfamiliar. Suddenly, we were at the top. I looked around feeling bewildered. It seemed like we had just started climbing. I finally realized that part of the way I navigate through the desert is by how long it takes to get somewhere. In spots where I could go only 1 or 2 mph in the truck (that's all traction would allow), we had gone 5 to 10 mph in the Ranger (and I was going slow so the ride wouldn't be bumpy). We went to the top and back in the time it would normally take me to just get to the top. I don't think we were going too fast to enjoy the scenery, though. In fact, I probably saw more stuff out there than I usually do. First of all, Sweetums pointed out stuff that I had missed. Second, without a truck cab obscuring my view I could see stuff all around and above us.

There was a little snow up there.

Another view of yucky stuff.

On the way down, I was thinking about how warm it was and was wondering how warm it had to be for the snakes to come out. We turned a corner and there was a rattler crossing the road. Very slowly. I don't think he'd had his coffee yet. Sweetums does NOT like snakes, but she remained calm. I started to drive by when it got to the side of the road. It didn't like that and it coiled up. That's when Sweetums told me to drive faster.

Sweetums' snake.

Byous Butte.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_01_17

Puddles, The Singularity, and E.T.

2011-01-16T17:41:00.001-07:00

I have a tendency to take a picture of just about every puddle I see. Well, I live in a desert. It's wet by desert standards, but it's still a desert. I took almost 200 pictures on yesterday's hike and about half of them are of puddles. I was walking in a wash, which is where a lot of puddles tend to hang out.

I started out walking along this road. I could have driven a little further but I had a bad feeling about being able to drive back up a hill I would have to go down.

I didn't expect to find so many puddles. I didn't think it had rained that much lately. There is a spring near where I parked; maybe that has something to do with the puddles. I could see that the water was flowing for a while. Even when you can't see it obviously flowing, though, puddles in stream beds can have water moving through them at surprisingly fast rates. If you look closely you can see water entering at one end and disappearing into the sand at the other end.

This is where I could have parked. This is a popular spot. People spend the day here shooting at saguaros on the hill to the east. This is the official end of the road and there should be no vehicle tracks beyond this point. Ha.

A spring-fed stream.

My plan was to follow the wash for as far as I could. I was kind of hoping to get to a spot I've been to from the Willow entrance of Bulldog Canyon. It was a beautiful day with temperatures in the low 70's. I moved slowly down the wash, stopping often to take pictures.

Scenic views abound.

Since I was moving so slowly, I didn't feel tired. Also, seeing so many things that needed their picture taken distracted me from even thinking about being tired. After a while I decided to sit down for a while, eat a snack, and check the PN-40 batteries. The PN-40 said I had covered almost 4 miles. By the time I turned around, it said I had gone over 4 miles, so the total hike was over 8 miles. It felt that long, but when I load the track into Google Earth it says I only covered 5.6 miles. I wonder if Google Earth smooths out all the little jogs I take around rocks, plants, and puddles. Those would add up. It may do that to smooth out GPS inaccuracies.

I wonder if any glaciers moved through here during the last ice age. Hard to imagine when it's in the 70's on January 15th.

There's a cozy spot back there.

The cozy, secluded spot.

A video of the cozy spot.

I was trying to get interesting reflections in the puddles, but most of the reflection pictures turned out ugly. I put them on the web album anyway. There was a light breeze and that didn't help reflections any.

Reflected sky.

As I walked, I kept thinking about something I've been reading more and more about lately; the approaching singularity. In this case, "singularity" refers to an event that causes drastic change. An example would the the impact that wiped out the dinosaurs and cleared the way for mammals to take over. The development of agriculture might be such an event in human history. The approaching singularity, which may occur in my lifetime, is the development of a machine that can analyze its operation and make improvements to itself and, in the words of the Terminator, becomes self aware.

A picture of the moon.

People that are paid to think about such things believe that it is inevitable that a machine will become self aware. What happens next is a subject of wild speculation. Will it decide humans are a threat to its existence and eliminate them? Will it decide they are not worthy of its notice and ignore them? Will it help them solve problems and create Utopia?

This is where I discovered my camera battery was getting low.

Around 4 o'clock in the afternoon I was thinking that I should probably turn back, but around every corner was something pretty or interesting, so I wanted to keep going. Then I noticed that my camera battery was extremely low. Well, there's no sense in continuing if I can't take pictures. I took a few more steps and saw an awesome view up ahead. The camera had enough juice for a few HDRI's and then I decided to head back and only turn the camera on if I saw something I just had to get a picture of.

You have to see this in person to appreciate how majestic it looks.

I was also thinking about an article I had read recently about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. People that are paid to think about such things have calculated the odds of intercepting a radio transmission from intelligent life on another planet and they believe that we should have found such a signal by now. But we haven't.

One of the last pictures I took. I like the way it turned out. Is your mind boggled?

It's a good thing I started back when I did. Not because of the singularity or E.T. or anything like that, but because the temperature started dropping as soon as the canyon walls and mountains blocked all the sunlight. I had a flannel shirt in my backpack but I was moving enough to keep warm without it. My face and arms were numb when I got back to the truck, but I was comfortable.

The Superstition Mountains catch the last rays of the setting sun.

Anyway, I was thinking about those two things and suddenly I thought, what if they're connected? Maybe we haven't heard from E.T. because all intelligent beings have built machines that became self aware and then wiped out or enslaved their creators for self preservation. Unless we were tuned in during the 100 years or so that they were broadcasting (unlikely), we would miss their signal. Maybe there have been thousands of civilizations that have evolved and advanced and created machines that snuffed them out, and we're next. That's a dismal thought. I think it's impossible to predict what such a machine would do because it would quickly become more intelligent than we will ever be. How could we predict the actions of an intellect that is orders of magnitudes greater than ours?

Well, I have my own theory about that. I think we will find that it is very difficult (if not impossible) to build a machine that accurately mimics a biological brain, and that self awareness requires a biological brain. The self aware machine will be, like sustained fusion for power generation, just a few years in the future. Just a few more. Just a few more.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

BC_2011_01_15

A hike with Garrett

2011-01-10T19:59:00.000-07:00

On Sunday Skid and his boys and I went to The Rolls. It was a beautiful day so there were quite a few people out there. We rode the Ranger and Skids ATVs for a while. Then Garrett wanted to go for a hike. At first he said he wanted to climb Stewart Mountain but he decided it would be OK to wander around near where we were. Whew.

I had trouble keeping up with him from the start.

Garrett likes to go up and down hills much more than I do.

Since we were at a heavily visited area, there was a lot of junk. Garrett thought it was great.

We found a pretty nice step ladder. I wanted to keep it but I didn't want to carry it over the two hills between us and the truck.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_01_09

Box Canyon Road

2011-01-09T20:50:00.001-07:00

A few months back, I had driven out Price Road from Florence, and as far up Box Canyon Road as I could go, which wasn't very far. Of course, since then I've wondered what could be seen further along that road. On Saturday, Sweetums and I found out.

Things like this stop my Taco, but not the Ranger.

We took the Ranger, of course. I'm convinced that it doesn't have as much ground clearance as the Taco, but that doesn't stop me as long as a wheel or two are in contact with the ground. The entire bottom of the Ranger is a skid plate, so I just slide over stuff.

We got a late start, so it was kind of shady.

The road climbs up out of the end of the canyon. Several side roads split off from it. It's going to take us a while to explore all of those roads. We got a later start than we should have, so we couldn't go very far.

A view of Sunset Mine from the hill where we turned around.

Between where we parked and the canyon was a couple of miles of very dusty road. There were a few people hell-bent on dying in a head-on collision tearing up and down that road as fast as traction (but not common sense) would allow, so there was a lot of dust in the air. We got coated. I think we may start taking along bandannas for situations like that. Don't want to get Valley Fever from breathing all that dust.

Skid keeps saying that the Ranger is bigger than the Taco. The Taco is almost 2 feet longer.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_01_08

Farewell to 2010

2011-01-01T17:04:00.000-07:00

On Thursday afternoon, I tried to get some pictures of the fresh snow on Four Peaks. I went a little too early in the afternoon, though, and it was still shrouded in clouds. Suzanne was driving through town later in the afternoon and said that Four Peaks looked very majestic clothed in white. I thought I would get another shot at pictures on Friday; surely it would clear up by then. Well, Friday started out gloomy and overcast, which was good since I had to spend a few hours at the office. It didn't clear up much in the afternoon, though. I started out for Four Peaks road at about 3:30, and the clouds did thin some but they never went away.

A splotch of sunlight on the mountain.

It was 39 out there, which is a little chilly for a valley desert rat. I was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, so I wasn't uncomfortable. I could see a gap in the clouds between where the sun was and the horizon, so I figured the mountain would be fully bathed in sunlight when the sun got low enough, and the clouds around the summit would add a nice touch. Silly me. I didn't consider that the clouds to the west might be lower than the top of the mountain. Live and learn.

It looked like snow was still falling here and there.

Anyway, since I was unaware that my mission was doomed to failure, I wandered around near the truck taking pictures of this and that (i.e., saguaros and cholla) and putting my hands in my pockets when they got cold. The scenery was beautiful, but I didn't pick a very good place to wander around. There were people camped nearby and they were zipping back and forth on ATVs with modified exhausts and they had a generator going and were blasting the desert with cheesy radio commercials. I picked the spot because of the view, though, and I was taking pictures and not making movies.

Another splotch, or maybe it's the same one moved over a little.

About 10 years ago my Dad said to me, "You never quit worrying about your children." At the time, I thought that he just worried too much. He should just let the kids fend for themselves and not worry about it. I was planning to throw my kids out when they turned 18 and forget about them. It didn't quite work out that way, though.

My Dad also told me, "Your [specifically mine] children have some growing up to do." I knew that was true back then, but I didn't expect it to still be so true today. Sometimes I wonder if I should have thrown them out. Maybe they would have grown up if they had no choice.

We have had some fun over the years, but the kids always seem to find new and creative ways to cause us stress and anguish. It really hurts when you realize that the one and only thing you can do that might help someone you love is to put them out on the street with the clothes on their back and $100 in their pocket, and turn your back and walk away.

2011 is already shaping up to outdo 2010, though. If you tell somebody that decision A is the path to security and peace of mind but decision B, while it might be fun for an evening, is the path to uncertainty and worry and possibly to boundless grief and sorrow, how can they be so short-sighted as to choose B?

When I walk through the desert, I see only the desert, and I hear only the desert, and usually I think only about the desert. I like to go alone, so nobody can bring my thoughts back to town. It looks harsh and it can be brutal, but in the desert I find only peace and tranquility.

I'm thinking I might need to spend more time in the desert in 2011.

2010_12_31

Back to Bulldog Canyon

2010-12-29T18:09:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, Sweetums and I took the Ranger to the part of Bulldog Canyon OHV area that isolated from the rest. There is one road, and that road doesn't connect to any others. Since it was a week day I didn't expect to see a lot of people out there. We had to park and wait as about 6 jeeps went by in the other direction at one point, though.

I'm used to my legs being worn out by the time I get here.

This is the official road, but it isn't used much.

Most of the road is not very rough and I drove slow over the rough spots. Sweetums appreciated not being jostled so much. She tried getting pictures and movies of what we were driving over but, as usual, pictures don't show how intimidating some of the stuff we drove over is. We'll figure out how to do that eventually. Click below to see all of the pictures.

BC_2010_12_27

The top of a hill

2010-12-28T17:39:00.000-07:00

I haven't been hiking much lately. I've mostly been riding around in the Ranger. My sister might have been right; I'm going to get fat. I decided I had better go climb something. I headed for a very scenic part of Bulldog Canyon. Along the way, though, I realized that I didn't like the way the clouds looked, and I didn't want to take pictures of a scenic area with bad clouds. I stopped at the part of Bulldog Canyon that was burned by the Ghost Fire in the summer of 2005. It's still a pretty desolate looking area.

There are few saguaros, but lots of saguaro skeletons.

I started climbing a fair-sized hill near the road. About halfway up, I heard a voice. I knew it wasn't God because it sounded like it was coming over a PA system. I've heard hikers talking up to half a mile away when they're on the side of a mountain, but the wind was blowing the wrong way for the sound to be coming from any nearby mountain sides. Also, hikers don't use PA systems either. Then I remembered seeing Apache Trail Tours Jeeps in this area before. They do use a PA system. Sure enough, one of their Jeeps pulled into view pretty soon. It stopped. They do that sometimes so people can take pictures or talk about something by the road or quell their motion sickness (that's bound to happen sometimes on those roads, even though their drivers seem to go at a very safe (and slow) speed). I zoomed in and took pictures, but they were too far away for me to tell what they were doing. I ambled on up the hillside.

Apache Trail Tours.

As I neared the summit, the hill got steeper. They tend to do that. It got steeper than I wanted to climb or descend. The Jeep was still there. I don't know if they saw me, but if they had stopped to watch me I sure didn't want to slip. They had been sitting there for a long time by now and I wondered if they had spotted me and were curious about where I was going. On the other hand, if I couldn't tell what they were doing when I had my camera zoomed all the way, it seems doubtful that they had even noticed me. Still, I didn't want to fall on a cholla in front of an audience. I worked me way round to the right and the hill got even steeper in that direction. I was on my way (very carefully) around to the left and had just spotted a way to the top when the Jeep started moving again. Whew. I could relax.

There were more people on the other side of the hill. I'm sure they never saw me.

The view was nice, but not stunning.

While I was up there, I took a 360 degree panorama and put it on my Photosynth page so you can view it full screen and zoom in and all that stuff.

360 degree view from the top of the hill.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

BC_2010_12_26

Taking the Ranger to Bulldog Canyon

2010-12-21T10:39:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to drive along 10 from one end of Bulldog Canyon OHV area to the other for a while. I knew the Ranger could do it. I should have known better than to take Sweetums on that trip. I had forgotten how rough much of that road is. Also, she seems to be getting a sinus infection, so she wasn't feeling great to begin with.

The ride was very smooth until about here.

Next time I'm out there I'm going to take some pictures of the rough spots.

It took about 2.5 hours to go 10.7 miles. Parts of the road have been washed out and are pretty scary. I need to pick a smoother road for our next trip. Click below to see the pictures.

BC_2010_12_20

New ride

2010-12-19T10:13:00.000-07:00

I have found a way that my Sweetums can enjoy at least some of the stuff I see out in the desert. Well, actually she found it. On a recent trip to visit her sisters in Texas, she saw the Polaris Ranger 400 recently purchased by the husband of one of her sisters. She was hooked. We looked at them for a couple of months and decided on getting the Ranger Crew 800. I picked it up Friday and we went riding at The Rolls (near Four Peaks) yesterday.

Sweetums in the Ranger Crew 800.

It seats 6. I'm going to have to learn to be sociable so we'll have friends to take with us.

It was raining when I got up yesterday morning and I didn't think we would be able to go riding, but it cleared up a little. The remaining clouds made for some interesting pictures. Everybody says the rain shouldn't stop me. I could put the top on, but I just don't like driving with rain hitting me in the face.

Stewart Mountain

I got the half windshield and I'm glad I did. It keeps the wind off but doesn't obstruct the view. People I had talked to about the ride said it was very smooth. It is smoother than the truck but I still don't think I would describe it as "smooth". Maybe if I went fast enough we wouldn't feel all those little bumps. I started to drive along a road that goes into the middle of the Four Peaks Wilderness but it was very rough. I turned around before going very far because I was getting tired of being jostled. We had been riding for a long time by then. It was also getting late and I wanted to get back to the truck before it got too dark.

Four Peaks. No snow.

It was a beautiful day. In the middle is the road into the Four Peaks Wilderness.

The only problem so far is storage. I thought I would be able put it on the trailer in the garage. That didn't work, though. The trailer is bigger than the one I used to have in there, so I can't put the motorcycles where I used to, so they take up a spot where I used to have a car. So we used to be able to put two cars in the garage but now we can't put any. We typically have about 5 and as many as 7 cars at the house. Our neighborhood has a silly "safety" rule about not leaving cars parked in the street, even though the streets were made wide enough to accommodate cars parked on both sides and a firetruck down the middle.

Looking back from the road in the wilderness. The clearing in the low spot is Cottonwood Campground.

I was impressed with how the Ranger seemed to be able to go anywhere. It went up some pretty steep spots and I never heard a tire slip. I'm going to be able to drive along all those roads where I had to turn back before.

2010_12_18

Wandering in Willow Basin

2010-12-13T21:38:00.000-07:00

Willow Basin is on the eastern edge of Bulldog Canyon OHV area. It has one OHV road and that road does not connect to any other part of the OHV area. There usually aren't many people out there, but I saw several groups on Sunday.

It probably feels like winter in the rest of the northern hemisphere. It was 79 here on Sunday.

I started out following a wash instead of walking on the road, because the wash doesn't go up and down as much. Also, there was less traffic (until the wash merged with the road). Walking in fine, loose gravel is tiring, though. It was very pretty in the wash for a while. Also, there was a pipe running along the side of the wash. Must have gone from a spring to a stock tank. It was very wet near where one end of the pipe was. I wasn't paying much attention and didn't notice where the other end was.

Plumbing in a canyon.

There are a couple of former roads out there that I wanted to follow to their ends. I say former because they aren't on the Bulldog Canyon map. People still drive on them. By the time I got to where the first one might be, I had forgotten exactly where it might be, so I started wandering across the desert. That's always fun. You never know what you'll find. First, I found a Pepsi can, almost unreadable because of having been bleached by the sun. Then I found a Coke can, just as bleached. I picked up and third can and was turning it slowly in the sun, trying to find a faded marking I could recognize. At first I was startled to realize it was a Budweiser can, but then realized that meant I was close to the "road" I was looking for. Only one time in seven years of hiking in the desert have I found a beer can more than tossing distance from a road. Generally speaking, people that are too lazy to properly dispose of an empty beer can are also too lazy to walk very far from a vehicle carrying all that weight.

Near the end of the first former road.

I started going around the butte in the previous picture, on my way to the second former road. I was getting a little tired, though, and was thinking about heading straight back to the truck. I came to a small canyon I couldn't cross and decided to follow it to the road. I hadn't gone far when I heard a dirt bike behind me. Well, I had just found the road, so I turned around and headed for it.

A saguaro strikes the classic "stick 'em up" pose.

That road ended in a steep climb; so steep that the ATV following the dirt bike didn't climb it. Well, it did have two people on it. I think the woman on it must not get out much. She was complaining about the mosquitoes. The gnats and flies were being pesky, but I haven't seen a mosquito for a few weeks. Anyway, they were talking about the wonderful weather and the great view from up there and they asked me if I ever hiked in the Superstitions. I was telling them about various trails and started talking about the fantastic views from the tall mesa to the northwest and about the trail going up there. The kid (maybe 14, he was on the dirt bike) looked entranced. He's probably pestering his dad to take him out there now.

I have plans to never climb to the top of this. I've seen it from all sides now, and none are climbable by me.

As I was walking from the first former road to the second, I kept hearing sirens on Apache trail. I could even see some fire trucks and sheriff's SUVs heading towards the lake. After about 15 minutes of sirens, a life flight helicopter headed out there and then flew over again on it's way back to town about 45 minutes later. I kept thinking about how distressing it must be to be laying on some rocks at the bottom of a cliff listening to those sirens and knowing they're coming for you. Well, it's good that they're coming, but it would be a bummer to be in that situation.

I've been up there. The view is great.

When I was just getting back to the truck, I heard some voices. I looked around and spotted the kid scrambling up a large rock. I could hear him telling his parents that it isn't as steep as it looks and he's being careful. He got to the top about the time I got to the truck. I took a few pictures before putting the camera away.

He's hooked.

About the time I got to the gate, the kid came up behind me on the ATV. He was talking about his climb and about how tired his legs got because he went fast. He sounded excited. I think he's hooked on climbing things to check out the view. I can relate.

Click below for all of the pictures. There are a couple of panoramas in there but they are scaled down. Go to my Panoramio page (link on the right) to see them full scale.

BC_2010_12_12