Friday Fitness Hike

Friday’s hike met at the Tom’s Thumb Trailhead, where we hiked the Marcus Landslide Trail.  The hike started off rainy, but cleared after perhaps twenty minutes or so.

Amy composed this group photo, which I shot from my tripod.  From left to right are Linda, Kevin, Amy, Janet, Teresa, Marilyn, Mary, and Jerry.

 

A bird’s nest in a chain fruit cholla, with Sven Slab in the background:

Linda sent me this photo of me photographing the nest.

 

More chain fruit cholla:

Sven Towers III, and II.  (Seven Tower I is only partially visible at the far right in this photo.)

 

A spider web among some barrel cacti:

Linda took this photo of the web from above:

 

We saw a mule deer, but the wide angle lens that I was using didn’t get me very close:

Marilyn got this photo of the deer with her camera.

 

The Granite Ballroom with the Thumbnail Pinnacle off in the distance.

Broken mushroom rocks:

 

We spent nearly all of the hike in Scottsdale’s McDowell Sonoran Preserve.  Some of us did, however, take a few steps into McDowell Mountain Park.  Here, Amy and Teresa pose by a sign on the Boulder Trail.

The trail leads up a hill formed from the slide mass:

Linda took this photo of me at around that point.

The trail goes past a lichen covered slab of granite:

Amy makes her way up the slide mass.  Rock Knob is in the background at the right.

We stopped at the interpretive viewpoint which shows the locations of various landmarks including Four Peaks and Weaver’s Needle.  I took this photo from that view area.

Taking a break near the view point…

Submarine Rock:

We returned via the Caballo Trail.  Along that trail is an old feeding trough…

There’s also an old water tank nearby.  Tom’s Thumb can be seen just left of the water tank.

On the drive out, after the hike was over, Teresa took this photo of caballos crossing the road.