Heather and I hiked a 10.5 mile loop in the Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area, venturing into the adjoining Tonto National Forest as well. The bulk of our hiking was on the Cottonwood and Limestone Trails.
Heather in a wash that crossed the Cottonwood Trail. I want to go back sometime and hike this from Cave Creek up to this point (and perhaps beyond).
Looking up at Skull Mesa:
The only water we saw during our hike was in this concrete tank. Cave Creek is bone dry, but somehow, Limestone Spring managed to fill this tank to overflowing.
Another view of Skull Mesa:
Elephant Mountain:
This is a trail marker on the Limestone Trail. We could have shortened our hike considerable by following the arrow pointing to the trail leading back to Spur Cross. We continued on toward Rondo Spring, but chose to not add an additional two miles to our hike by going there. Instead, we stayed on the Limestone Trail which leads from National Forest back into the Park.
Another Trail marker; apparently we could also have gone to Peterson Spring.
Another view of Elephant Mountain from a drainage that we hiked through on the way to considerably higher territory.
This is the last trail marker that we encountered along the Limestone Trail. While it does point out how to get back to Spur Cross, possibly the more important locations are those of nearby water sources.
