Category: Hiking (page 41 of 68)
Hike descriptions and/or photos.
Linda, Bob, and I hiked nine miles today on the Long Loop in the Competitive Track Area. The Long Loop is actually only eight miles long, but we began and ended across the road in the Horse Staging Area.
Slightly before sunrise…
Views from the Long Loop…
Linda and Bob hiking down one of the steeper hills on the Long Loop:
We saw these quail towards the end of the Long Loop:
When we got back to the parking lot, we were slightly shy of nine miles for the day. We hiked across the lot to add the distance necessary for nine miles. We saw this skull fragment as we were walking back to our vehicles.
I did a short photography hike on Wednesday morning…
Bob and I hiked about 4.5 miles starting from the Tom’s Thumb Trailhead. We explored the Sven Towers area. We discovered that the descents for Sven Tower II and III don’t go that far down the mountain; they lead to the starts of some of the climbs, which are still fairly high up the mountain.
Sunrise:
A view from the Feldspar Trail, shortly after sunrise.
Two shots of Bob combined into one photo. He’s hiking up one of the low angle slabs which (eventually) leads to the top of Sven Tower I.
Morrell’s Wall and Tom’s Thumb:
Rock Knob:
Getting closer to the top of Sven Tower I…
Bob scrambles up to the next section of granite slab.
Another view of Morrell’s Wall and Tom’s Thumb:
We hiked to the top of that slab (below), but didn’t go much higher. (Bob noticed some bees on the trail leading to the summit.)
A view of the Thumbnail Pinnacle. We didn’t go there this time. (It was quite hot – I drank about 3L of water on our hike.)
Yet another view of Morrell’s Wall and Tom’s Thumb.
I took this shot at the start of the descent for Sven Tower II.
A cool looking rock that we saw much later in the hike. (Route finding occupied much of my attention in the interim.)
We saw this rabbit early in the hike.
We saw this lizard late in the hike.
Bob and I hiked about 10.5 miles on Friday. Perhaps six miles of our hike was in washes. The rest was on the Pemberton.
Just before sunrise; I took this from the side of the road just after driving into the park.
We had some interesting clouds at the start of the hike. This shot is was taken from the Pemberton, prior to entering Stoneman Wash.
A similar shot, taken from within Stoneman Wash.
This is one of the clay pits off of the Pemberton.
More wash photos. This is one of the larger washes which feeds into Stoneman Wash.
Large Saguaros in front of the McDowells:
We hit the Pemberton again, and then returned via another wash.
This is another view of the clay pit on the way back.
We saw several deer and several owls on our hike. This is the only wildlife photo that I managed to get on Friday:
Bob and I hiked a little over nine miles on Friday, starting from the Wagner Trailhead. Ranger Amy accompanied us for the first two miles of the hike.
Sunrise:
Prickly pear at sunrise.
We saw rain showers in the distance as we began our hike. We eventually hiked in the rain for a short while, but it was a light, pleasant rain. When I got back, Rand and Mark told us that it had rained hard in other parts of the park.
This is a view from the road between the campground and the maintenance compound.
Agave:
Ranger Amy found a piece of bone. It was perhaps six inches long.
A view from the Bluff Trail.
Amy and Bob chatted while I took pictures. (I tried following a coyote that we had seen a few minutes earlier.)
Lichen covered rocks:
This beetle (?) was a bit more than two inches in length. It was very active, making it difficult to get a photo. The only time is settled down was when it attached itself to Bob’s shoe.
Dead tree:
Funnel web:
This large boulder looks unremarkable unless viewed from just the right angle; only than can one see that it’s fairly narrow at the base.
The following two photos were taken with the HX90V.
We saw this cardinal while walking through the campground. He would attempt to get a drink of water from the faucet from time to time. 
Bob and I thought this was a raven at first, but then we noticed that the head wasn’t black. In fact, it doesn’t have much black at all, but it was difficult to see this from our location. I processed the +1EV exposure for this one, allowing us to see detail that is otherwise quite dark.
I told Amy about it when I got back. She suggested that it might be a Harris Hawk, but I wasn’t able to see enough detail in person to know for certain. Now that I have the photo processed, I’m fairly certain that it is a Harris Hawk.
I got this shot of a saguaro on the Scenic Trail with my HX90V.
Friday’s hike started from the Trailhead Staging Area. We went out on the Pemberton towards the pond and explored the washes in that area, returning to the Pemberton via Stoneman Wash. According to Linda’s GPS, we hiked 6.2 miles. (My watch indicated a somewhat greater distance, but it tends to overstate the distance under some circumstances.)
Sunrise:
A view from the Pemberton shortly after setting out.
This is where the Pemberton descends into Stoneman Wash.
Views of some of the formations across from the pond…
There are some high walls in the area.
We came across a spinal column and part of the skull of a large animal. Linda’s post-hike research indicates that these are Javelina remains.
A saguaro with Four Peaks at the left.
A healthy Senna Flower.
Four more saguaros:
We saw this horseshoe and a lot of other junk in one of the washes which feeds Stoneman Wash.
Linda identified this as a coyote melon. It’s slightly larger than a baseball, but very light. The insides are hollow and we could hear seeds rattling around inside when we shook it.
Linda, hiking in Stoneman Wash.
This is the small wash that can be seen to the left just after hiking the Pemberton out of Stoneman Wash towards the Trailhead Staging Area.
I hiked Lousley Hill on Wednesday Morning…
