Ben, Marilyn, Sara, Nick, Mike, and Marilyn joined me for Friday’s hike starting from the Wagner Trailhead. A subset of us did: Wagner, Delsie, Gooseneck, Rock Knob, Pemberton, Bluff Wash, Bluff, Granite, and Wagner. Total hike distance was 11.8 miles with 800+ feet of total ascent.

Mike, Nick, Marilyn, Sara, Marilyn, and Ben:

Some sort of hawk, perhaps a red tail.

Chain fruit cholla:

The flowers are goldeneye – see below – with Red Mountain in the distance.

Chuparosa:

Goldeneye – these flowers sort of look like brittlebush, but the leaves are different and don’t have the whitish coating that brittlebush leaves have.

Marilyn descends a steep section coming down from Bluff Wash. We also used to go up this way, but the move up has gotten a lot harder now that even more of the sand below has eroded away.

Ben, Marilyn, Kay, and Nora joined me for a hike of the Hog Heaven Loop starting from Tom’s Thumb Trailhead. After doing the interesting / fun part of the loop, I left the group, hiking down East End, left on Windmill, left on Coachwhip, left on Pemberton, left on Boulder, right on Marcus Landslide, and right on Caballo. My total distance ended up being 10.7 miles with nearly 2500 feet of total ascent.

This is part of the trail leading to Hog Heaven.

Kay leads the way up a steep section between the main wall of Hog Heaven and the Thumbnail Pinnacle.

Ben, Kay, Marilyn, Nora, and Kevin at the Thumbnail Pinnacle.

We’ve passed the Thumbnail Pinnacle and are now on the ridge leading to the East End, the highest point in the McDowells.

Ben, Marilyn, Kay, and Nora at the summit.

Glass dome on the left and Tom’s Thumb on the right.

I think these purple flowers are Trailing Windmills.

Fairy Duster on the East End Trail.

I think this is a hawk…

Look for the Thumbnail Pinnacle below and to the right of what appears to be the summit. We were there earlier in the day. (The actual summit is beyond the apparent high point in this photo.)

A view from the Coachwhip Trail.

Another look at the Thumbnail Pinnacle, this time from the Pemberton Trail.

Nina, Pat, Wayne, Kay, Mike, and Marilyn joined me for a 10.6 mile hike in the Dixie Mine area. We also saw Bill and Stan at the trailhead as well as on the way back – they did some maintenance in the mine area. We also saw Jill who had intended to join our hike, but arrived at the trailhead an hour early; she ended up hiking by herself.

This area was somewhat more slippery than normal due to the puddles and wet sand.

Kay, Pat, Nina, Wayne, and Kevin.