Bob and I hiked four miles in the Tom’s Thumb area on Friday. We hiked up Mesquite Canyon and then proceeded on the climber’s access trail to a point just past Hog Heaven, nearly to the Thumbnail Pinnacle, for roughly1500 feet of total ascent. We did this hike as an out-and-back; we had planned on making it a loop, but unfortunately made an (energy depleting) wrong turn after Hog Heaven, getting into some fairly difficult terrain. We removed the cairn which led us up the wrong path and added a few more indicating the correct route.
Bob and I hiked up the low angle slabs to the ridge line of the Sven Slab / Sven Tower I area.
Bob, making his way up the bottom-most slab.
Hummingbird and saguaro blossoms:
Morrell’s Wall and Tom’s Thumb:
I’m not sure what this plant is, but we saw a lot of it growing on the slabs as we made our way up.
I think this might be the very top of Sven Tower III. The Thumbnail Pinnacle is visible in the distance.
Prickly Pear Blossom:
Bob crossing Linda’s “favorite” spot on this hike:
A good view of Marcus Landslide, below. It’s also an expansive view of McDowell Mountain Park.
Linda says:
So happy you guys had fun on Friday! Bob makes that spot look so easy…..lol….but I know better…lol. I think that moss you photographed is called Arizona Spike Moss (Selaginella arizonica) my reference book describes it as “typically dry, appearing to be dead. A little water brings it back to lush, green state within a few days. Often mistakenly called resurrection fern which is a different species.”
Thank you for the wonderful pictures!
May 15, 2016 — 3:15 pm
jon leverenz says:
Strenuous hike. Congrats. Like the cacti and hummingbird, especially. Thank you. Keep them coming.
May 16, 2016 — 10:00 am
Kevin says:
Thanks, Jon.
I’m not happy with the background on several of the early morning shots. E.g. for the hummingbird & saguaro photo, the saguaro was in the shade, but the background was brightly lit by the sun. I did a color correction on the sunlit background and the shaded foreground separately, but am still not happy with it. (Though I do think it’s significantly better than the OOC version.)
May 16, 2016 — 12:52 pm