Friday Hike – Black Ridge Loop

Marilyn, Linda, Heather, Sara, Mike, and I hiked eight miles on the Black Ridge Loop in the Mazatzal Wilderness.

This is the view of old SR 87 at the start of the hike.

Mount Ord had patchy snow!

These might be Goldfields:

Indian Paintbrush:

Marilyn, Heather, Sara, Mike, and Linda – practicing “social distancing” while hiking!

Linda tells me that these pink flowers are in the Evening Primrose family.

Mexican Poppy:

Linda thinks that these yellow flowers are Western Wallflowers.

We think that’s Horseshoe Dam / Reservoir in the distance. (Thanks to Heather for looking this up.)

Small cacti – I don’t know what they are.

Other peaks in the area had a dusting of snow too.

You can see evidence here of the Sunflower Fire. There’s a lot of new growth though…

Brunson Tank – the fullest that I’ve seen it:

We saw these bones as we neared Upper Sheep Creek:

It was a muddy hike; this is Sara’s boot.

We’re on (or near) the Little Saddle Mountain Trail now.  The creek / drainage next to the trail had more water in it than I had ever seen before.  We had to cross it a number of times. On one occasion, the trail was in the stream; I think we all got our feet wet.

This was near one of the many crossings; it wasn’t the biggest crossing though.

Fleabane:

This sign is at the end of the connector trail coming from the Cross F Trailhead.