Tag: Friday Fitness Hike (page 20 of 36)

Linda and I hiked a little over 12 miles on Friday. We began at the Horse Staging Area and made our way over to the Pemberton. We hiked to the Dixie Mine Trail, went perhaps half a mile, and then hiked many miles in a wash that lead back to the competitive track area. We crossed the Long Loop just before that trail climbs up to the South Ridge.  We continued following the wash until it again intersected the Long Loop. We returned via a combination of the Long Loop and one of the service roads.

Sunrise from the Horse Staging Area:

A view from T-Bone Ridge on the Technical Loop:

This is one of the clay pits near the Pemberton Trail:

This is where we entered the wash, just off of Dixie Mine Trail.

More views of the wash…

Linda noticed an unusual saguaro. It sort of looked like a crested saguaro at the top of one of the arms, but we couldn’t decide if it would turn into a crest or if separate arms would eventually form.

Here’s a closer look at the top of the saguaro. The left arm sort of looks like a crest, but it also has distinct humps.

Other nearby saguaros:

Linda also found this bird’s nest in a chain fruit cholla:

Bob and I hiked a little over 12 miles with 2100 feet of elevation gain starting from the Dixie Mine Trailhead at the end of Golden Eagle Blvd. We hiked Dixie Mine to Coachwhip, Coachwhip to Windmill, Windmill to Bell Pass, and Bell Pass to Prospector. As we were descending Prospector, we hiked up an old road leading to a prominent ridge. When we got to the end of the road, we continued following an lesser used trail to the summit. When we returned to Prospector, we hiked back to the service road, then down the road to the Dixie Mine Trail, which lead us back.

This is an early morning view as we hiked through Eagle’s Nest, a gated community which is in between the parking area and the actual start of the Dixie Mine Trail. I normally try to avoid pictures of sidewalks and roads, but I thought the clouds and the golden mountains in the distance made for a good picture.

A view of the McDowells from the Dixie Mine Trail.

Prickly Pear on the Coachwhip Trail:

Bob saw this rattlesnake on the Bell Pass Trail. I walked right by it without seeing it!

Our photography eventually woke it up…

Bob, on our way back from our side trip to the top of one of the ridges.

I saw these small cacti growing out of the rock at the top of the ridge.

We also saw this small but healthy ocotillo atop the ridge.  It doesn’t seem to me that it would get enough water atop the ridge, yet somehow it’s remarkably green!

This is a view from the Prospector Trail of the ridge that we had summited. We were definitely not the first to visit the top of that ridge – we saw a folding chair at the top.

Saguaros on the Prospector Trail:

Bob, hiking back on the Dixie Mine Trail.

We saw this bunny early in our hike. (These two photos come at the end since they were taken with the Sony HX90V.  The HX90V has a much longer zoom than the RX100M3, but its image quality is not as good.)

We saw this horned lizard on the Bell Pass Trail, not far away with the intersection of the Prospector Trail.

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.

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.

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.

Marilyn, Linda, Denise, Bob, and I hiked out to the Dixie Mine and back on Friday.  While in the area of the mine, we went to the top of the mine tailings. We hiked seven miles total.

Hedgehog cacti on the Dixie Mine Trail:

Prickly pear fruit:

Moss:

A view of the mine tailings from the Dixie Mine Trail.  We hiked to the top of the tailings atop which is a vertical mine shaft covered by a protective grate.

This is the grate which prevents helps to prevent people from falling down the shaft.

Looking down the mine shaft. It surprised me that there was water at the bottom. In the past when we’ve looked at it, we could never see water.  It also seemed a lot deeper in the past.

Kevin, Bob, Denise, Linda, and Marilyn:

This is the entrance to the horizontal shaft.

Linda, taking a picture of the main petroglyph panel. (Look at past Dixie Mine posts to see the main panel.)

Denise and Linda, hiking up the waterfall.

Marilyn points at some petroglyphs in that area.  There are quite a few around here, but you need to look for them.

More petroglyphs…

This is the wash past the waterfall.

It started raining by the time we got to the Prospector Trail.

Saguaros on the Prospector Trail:

Cholla on the Dixie Mine Trail:

Another view from the Dixie Mine Trail:

A view of the highest point in the McDowells, in the distance:

We found a flowering barrel cactus:

Seed pods on a mesquite tree:

This is the crested saguaro at the parking area.

Allen, Janet, Linda, Bob, Marilyn, and I hiked a little over eight miles on Friday. We hiked a loop consisting of the Tortoise, Pemberton, Lariat, Granite, and Wagner trails.

Sunrise:

We saw a tortoise (in the tortoise enclosure) at the start of the Tortoise Trail:

While hiking Pemberton, we encountered an equestrian riding her horse:

Linda and I took this photo of the group:

Saguaros on the Granite Trail.

We saw a cardinal in the same area:

Friday’s hike started at the Four Peaks (Horse) Staging Area.  Bob, Linda, Marilyn, and I hiked a seven mile loop.  Allen, Janet, Bella, and Savannah accompanied us for part of our hike.

A saguaro skeleton with Red Mountain in the background:

Another view of Red Mountain:

Hiking up Stoneman Wash…

A view of Four Peaks in the distance:

This is a jackrabbit in Stoneman Wash.  This gave me a chance to test my (new) Sony HX90V at a full-frame equivalent of 720mm. (The rest of the shots, above, were taken with a Sony RX100 III.)