Same place it Bulldog Canyon

Date: December 26, 2007
Location: Bulldog Canyon
Time and temperature: Start - 1413, 57
End - 1630, 56
Distance hiked: ~3 miles
The numbers:
36 Pictures taken
2 Attempts by squirrels to break my ankles

Ramblings: I went to the same place in Bulldog Canyon that I went to last time I went hiking. I wanted to gather up all those gun shells. I took some bags with me to carry them all. I'm sure I got within 50 feet of them, but I couldn't find them. Rats. I did find another pile just like the first one, but not as many shells. Probably shot from the same gun. I gathered them up. They were several hundred yards from the first pile.

As I strolled along, I saw what I thought were pieces of plastic bags caught on tree branches. I went to pull them off. When I got there I saw that they were tied to the trees. They were marking a trail (see the pictures). The trail was also marked by rock cairns. The trail was 10 or 15 feet wide and looked like a herd of elephants used it every day. Why somebody thought it also needed to be marked with plastic, I can't imagine. I started to take the plastic down but then imagined some city slicker wandering lost in the desert until he died and decided to leave it. You're welcome, slick.

There is also a picture of a more subtle trail. When looking at that trail from the top of Spooky Hill, I thought it had been made by deer. While on the trail, though, I could see that it was probably cleared by horseback riders. I can't imagine deer kicking all those rocks out of the way.

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Finally, back to the desert

Date: December 21, 2007
Location: Bulldog Canyon
Time and temperature: Start - 1430, 58
End - 1623, 58
Distance hiked: 1.5 miles
The numbers:
40 Pictures taken
1 Deer seen
1 Zanol (The American Products Co) bottle extracted from the desert

Ramblings: It's been a couple of weeks since I've been for a hike. I felt a little bad all week, like I was about to come down with a cold. I thought maybe it was because I had been cooped up for too long. I felt much better while I was hiking, but now that I'm back home I'm ready to get to bed and sleep for 12 hours. Anyway, it was very pretty out there today. The air was clear and there were some nice clouds on the horizon.

I just wandered around today. I like to walk around in an area that it seems like not many people would visit. I can always tell people have been there, though. There were horse tracks criss-crossing all over the place where I was today, and some were very fresh. I saw some very fresh deer tracks today, too, and saw one of the deer making them. I came over a ridge and it was in the wash below me. It was a large doe. It was bouncing along on all fours like deer do in cartoons, then it trotted off down the wash. It was gone before I could get the lens cap off.

It wasn't very cold, but the wind was blowing at least 15 mph. I had to put my hood on now and then to thaw my ears out. I'm so glad I don't live someplace that gets cold.

BC_2007_12_21

Water at Tortilla Flat

Last weekend I made a very short video of water flowing over the road at Tortilla Flat. Just now remembered to put it here.

Snow on Four Peaks

We have officially had more rain during the past two weeks than we have had during the previous 11 months. It's very wet around here right now. There was even some pretty thick fog this morning. All the clouds and fog were gone by this afternoon, though, so we could see that there is a little snow on Four Peaks. I didn't have much time to get pictures before the sun set.

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Apache Trail, near Canyon Lake

I drove out Apache Trail this afternoon. I think if I'd been out there yesterday morning, I might have seen some waterfalls. I bet I wouldn't have been able to cross the creek at Tortilla Flat, though. When I got out of the truck at the lake, it stunk pretty bad (the lake, not the truck). I hung around a while anyway, and was able to get a couple of pictures of a blue heron. Actually, I took a lot of pictures of it, but you can't see it against the background in most of them.

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Back to Bulldog

I felt like getting out of the house this afternoon so I went back to Bulldog Canyon. When I was there this morning, it was easy to drive around because the rain had compacted the sand in the washes, so I didn't bog down any. This afternoon, though, some kids had been riding dirt bikes up and down the road (and everywhere else). It's like they had been working as hard as they could to loosen the sand up. I kept getting bogged down.

I didn't drive very far down the road. I stopped in a place that I don't usually stop because too many people hang out there. You can tell from the pictures that a lot of people go there, and leave their trash.

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Clouds

We had a lot of rain last night. I left the house this morning planning to drive around the neighborhood and see how much water was in the catch basins. I wound up in Bulldog Canyon. Here are a few pictures.

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New hair color

Lauren colored her hair again. I keep wondering who that girl with the black hair is.

 

Lazy day

I went for a short stroll in Bulldog Canyon today. Not enough daylight to do much else. The small washes are full of magnetite after the recent rains. There were a few clouds around this afternoon. I guess it's gearing up for Friday and Saturday, when it's supposed to rain again. We'll see.

I found a large hole dug right next to the road. I've probably found it before, though, so it's nothing new. I also found a saguaro that branched like a tree instead of a saguaro. I've probably found it before, too. Let me know if you remember seeing this stuff before.

BC_2007_12_05

Ghost fire remnants

It was a beautiful clear day today. The brown cloud stayed out of the east valley. The Superstition Mountains looked so pretty on the way home, I had to go take some pictures. They are familiar "poses", but taken with my new filters. I'm finding out that the filters make it difficult to take pictures in low light; some of them turned out pretty dark.

After I took pictures of the mountains, I drove down Apache Trail looking for something else to photograph. I pulled over in an area that was burned by the Ghost fire on June 29, 2005. The area still looks devastated. It takes a long time for the desert to recover from something like that.

2007_12_03

Filterzzzzzzzz!

Date: December 2, 2007
Location: Bulldog Canyon
Time and temperature: Start - 1500, ??
End - 1700, 59
Distance hiked: 1.6 miles
Elevation change: 390 feet
The numbers:
69 Pictures taken
1 Golf ball left behind (I've got to get rid of them)

Ramblings: It was overcast and gloomy the whole time I was in Texas over the Thanksgiving holiday. I was looking forward to getting back to sunny Arizona. When I did get back, it was cloudy here, too. It kept getting cloudier and gloomier. It even rained (a lot, which was nice). The sun finally came out today; beautiful clear blue skies. I had to take some pictures.

Another reason I had to take some pictures is because I got some filters for my camera. A few weeks ago, I was looking through somebody else's pictures and realized he must be using a polarizing filter to get the sky to look the way he did. I looked into getting one for my camera, but couldn't find one for it on the Canon web site. I figured that I would have to buy an SLR and at least two lenses to get the zoom capability I wanted and a polarizing filter. It would cost $3000 or $4000. Then I Googled Canon polarizing filter and discovered LENSMATE. They make adapters and sell filters and lenses for Canon Powershot cameras. So I ordered my Christmas present early. Thank you, Suzanne, it's just what I wanted!

I hiked up to my favorite ridge in Bulldog Canyon, snapping pictures along the way. I took some with the polarizer adjusted and then another one with it mis-adjusted, for comparison. I also took some with the UV filter and polarizer in place and another one with them removed. I really like the way the polarizer makes the pictures look. There are a few pairs of pictures in the web album, with captions explaining the differences.

BC_2007_12_02

Rain! Lots of it!

It rained quite a bit yesterday and today. This afternoon, Lindsey and I drove out Apache trail and took some pictures near the Superstition Mountains. When we got to a wash that had a fair amount of water crossing it at a pretty good clip, I decided to stop and take pictures instead of crossing. Several small sedans zipped across. A couple were missing pretty bad when they got to the other side. Some crossed it at high speed. I wanted to get pictures of those, but another guy and I were standing by the road with cameras, and I think it tipped the drivers off. They all slowed down as long as we were in sight.

We drove up the Firstwater Trailhead road a little ways before we came to the same wash crossing that road. It was narrower - and therefore deeper - there. We didn't see anybody cross there. Did see one guy wisely decide to wait a while.

As we got back on Apache Trail to go home, we could see that the water level had dropped a little. There was also a line of cars, because the Forest service had shown up and closed the road.

Rain_2007_12_01

A couple of vehicles crossing the wash.

Here's how to cross a flooded wash on a bicycle.

And now a Ford Mustang crossing the wash.

Lastly, some folks that needed encouragement.

One more hike before Thanksgiving

Date: November 19, 2007
Location: Bulldog Canyon
Time and temperature: Start - 1707, 76
End - 1805, 63
Distance hiked: 1.3 miles
Elevation change: 360 feet
The numbers:
14 Pictures taken
2 Movies made
1 Mylar Pooh Bear and Tigger balloon extracted from the desert.

Ramblings: On my last two or three hikes, I've been close to heavily traveled roads or roads with ATVs and loud people on them. I haven't been able to enjoy the quiet of the desert. I decided that today I had better find a quiet place and give my ears a rest. I thought I would try to get to the top of a ridge in Bulldog Canyon before it got dark. It was after 5 when I left the truck, and sunset was at 5:23 today. I got to the ridge in 17 minutes, which amazes me. It looks like it's far away when you start out and you have to cross 2 deep washes and a bunch of smaller ones before you even start climbing. My heart was pounding on the steep part, but not as hard as it did last summer when I was walking slowly up small hills in 107 degree heat.

I didn't take many pictures on the way up because I was in a hurry. I didn't take many on the way down because it was dark. I made a couple of movies at the top to try to capture the quiet, but that doesn't work. When I watch them, I turn up the volume and discover that my camera makes all sorts of noises I had never heard before. At the end of the first video, I quietly whispered, "Silence". After I had downloaded it, I was watching it and turned the volume up to listen to the camera noises. I could hear it zoom in or out now and then, and I heard the lens cap swing and bump something, and there was a constant wunk-wunk-wunk-wunk-wunk in the background. I don't know what that might be. I was trying to figure it out when the video got to the end and I jumped out of my chair at the not-so-quiet "Silence".

On the way back to the truck, I figured I would have to get a flashlight out. On the way down into the first deep wash, though, I noticed that I could see my moon shadow. Strangely, no Cat Stevens songs popped into my head.

Once I got off the slope of the side of the ridge, every wash and dip, even the shallow ones, was filled with cool air, at least 3 or 4 degrees cooler that the high spots between them. It made all the ups and downs more fun than work.

BC_2007_11_19

Wandering around Bulldog Canyon

Date: November 17, 2007
Location: Bulldog Canyon OHV area
Time and Temperature: Start - 1555, 82
End - 1705, 72
Distance hiked: 0.8 miles
Elevation change: 360 feet
The numbers:
41 Pictures taken
15 Other people seen

Ramblings: It was a very nice day for a hike; cool with a light breeze. I headed out to Bulldog Canyon without much of an idea of where I would wind up. As I drove along the dirt road, I decided to hike out to Spooky Hill. On the way, though, I got sidetracked. I started to hike up the side of Horseshoe Mountain a little ways, taking a different route to Spooky Hill. I kept going higher and higher, though. I thought I might be about to find a new route to the top but I was stopped a few feet short. I might have been able to make it to the top, but I would have had to violate a couple of my hiking rules (rules about not putting myself in positions where I could fall to my death), so I stopped before disaster had a chance to strike.

BC_2007_11_17

Late afternoon stroll

Oh, I can't do all that stuff I usually do for a blog. I'm too tired today. That's because I was so tired yesterday I tossed and turned all night thinking that I really needed to get to sleep, so I didn't.

There were a lot of people on ATVs in Bulldog Canyon today. They were constantly zipping up and down the road. I was headed for some mountains and had to cross a lot of washes, so I didn't get as far as I had hoped. That part of Bulldog Canyon is heavily traveled. I saw horse hoof prints just about everywhere I went. Maybe it's popular because it's close to Bush Highway.

BC_2007_11_10

Another odd saguaro

Found this one tonight. Looks like it's had vertical cuts made all over it.

 

Camera experiment

I'm still experimenting with different ways to take pictures and different effects, but it doesn't cost near as much as it did with that instant-print camera I used many years ago. I was trying to make the flowers on this bush stand out. I think I need to polish my technique a little. I'm not sure why the leaves turned out so green.

 

Odd saguaros

I forgot to mention in yesterday's blog that when you are hiking on Picketpost Mountain, you never get away from the noise of cars and motorcycles on 60. It was kind of annoying. So today I thought I would go out to Bulldog Canyon for some peace and quiet. This was the first time I went out there this November. The combination for the gate locks is changed every month. The combination on my pass didn't work at either of the gates I tried. I figured my feet were too achy from yesterday's hike to get to a quiet spot in Bulldog Canyon without driving, so I just parked near the Salt River and wandered around there for a while. I found several saguaros that had something strange about them. Here are pictures.

2007_11_04

Picketpost Mountain

Date: November 3, 2007
Location: Picketpost Mountain, near Superior, Az.
Time and temperature: Start - 1123, 82
End - 1718, 78
Elevation change: 1757 feet
The numbers:
51 Pictures taken
7 Other hikers seen
6 Times I lost the trail
4 Times I seriously thought about turning back

Ramblings: Wow, what a hike. What a killer of a hike. I did have fun, though.

I started out by starting too late. I should have shopped for supplies last night. It was a little warm by the time I got on the trail, but it wasn't hot enough to be a problem. The problem was limited daylight. A sign said the parking area closed at sunset. There was a caretaker there that would probably have my truck towed if I was late getting back.

The trail was not bad for the first mile or so, except for how far away the mountain looked. I kept thinking that I wouldn't want to walk that far on level ground, much less on ground that looked like it went straight up. Then I met Conrad. He was sitting in the shade of a large rock on the side of the trail. He was waiting for his son and grandson to get back from the top. He seemed embarrassed that he had to sit there and wait. He talked about training with a heavy pack and coming back. He turns 75 next month. I think he's doing pretty darn good.

Just past Conrad's rock, the trail got steep. Then it got steeper. The trail was also difficult to follow in places. It's marked with cairns and paint spots, but a lot of times I would be walking (or climbing) on what seemed to be the trail, and it would just end. I would look around for a few minutes trying to find a trail marker and sometimes explore a little ways in various directions before I found it again. One of those times was when the trail was going up the middle of the canyon and up ahead I could see that it was nothing but polished rock going almost straight up. I might be able to climb it, but it looked too risky. That was one of the times I thought about going back. I looked around and saw that the trail went to the left, though, so I continued my quest.

There were also times when I knew I was on the trail because I could see markers up ahead, but the trail still looked treacherous. Several times I had to stand there and pick a route, take a few steps, then stop and make sure the route still looked like it would work from this new vantage point. Sometimes I would stand there planning the next 2 or 3 steps and going over the plan again and again before moving. The trail was sort of scary on the way up.

At about 2 in the afternoon, I stopped to have a snack. I got to thinking about how much sunlight was left and thinking that maybe I should turn back now. I got out the GPS to see how far I was from the summit. It was 0.3 miles distant and 400 feet higher. I thought about coming back next weekend and realized that the memory of how difficult the climb had been would be too fresh. I had to go on; it's now or never.

The rest of the way to the summit wasn't too bad. There's a mailbox full of notepads for people to write stuff at the summit. A note written on aluminum inside the door of the mailbox explains its history (see the pictures). The note reminds me of Dad's humor.

I figured I should leave the summit at 2:30 to get back to the truck before sunset. I got to the summit at 2:40, though. I took a few pictures and left at 2:51. That reminded me of going on trips with Dad. Drive for hours and hours, stop and look around a few minutes, then drive back.

The hike back down was really scary because I could see what I had my back to before. I would be walking along a steep downward slope and it would look like it ended at a sheer cliff ahead. Sometimes that was because I had lost the trail. Sometimes it was because that's what the trail was like. Well, I didn't have to go off the cliff, but I would turn up ahead or it wasn't quite as bad a cliff as it looked like. I was going slowly and carefully. Fortunately, my thighs didn't start cramping until I was back down to Conrad's rock. I felt relieved because the trail wasn't nearly as steep from there on down to the parking lot. It was a lot steeper than I remembered, though. It was a shame I had to hurry. I think I could spend several days on that trail taking pictures of all the neat stuff.

I Geotagged all of the pictures, but the ones in the canyon are just guesses. Google Earth isn't detailed enough there for me to figure out exactly where I was.

Picketpost_2007_11_03

Sunset near the Superstitions

No time for a hike before sunset today, but I went out to the Massacre Grounds trailhead and climbed a rocky hill to watch the sunset. It was very nice. I took some pictures of the sunset for Peggy.

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