I’ve upgraded to WordPress 3.5.1. I noticed that the interface for inserting photos and other media is different. This is a test…
This photo is from Friday’s Hike in the Tom’s Thumb Area. (It’s a new photo not shown in that post.)
Tag: McDowell Sonoran Preserve (page 9 of 11)
I’m trying to get better at post-processing this type of shot. See Friday Hike – Tom’s Thumb for more information about this area.
Janet, Bob, and I hiked up to Tom’s Thumb for Friday’s hike. The route we took is a bit different than that used by most folks to get there. We started off on the Tom’s Thumb Trail, but…
After half a mile, we turned off onto the climber’s access trail leading to Fort McDowell, Half and Half Wall, and the Lost Wall.
This access trail starts out flat and, for a short while, is easier than the Tom’s Thumb Trail. Here is a view from this trail shortly after leaving the Tom’s Thumb Trail.
We passed this structure along the way. It’s not clear what it was used for. I don’t recall there being an opening in it and it’s too tall for cattle to be able to feed from it.
We passed some interesting rock formations, both small and large on the way up. I like the one to the left with the hole in the top.
I like this one too:
We saw an old trail leading up to the pass just left of this small hill, but we did not explore it. (The portion of the path in the photo looks good, but getting to it isn’t especially easy.)
Bob and Janet waited for me while I scrambled up to take a look at the Lost Wall. From that higher vantage point, I got this photo of Troon and Pinnacle Peak. I got a photo of the Lost Wall too, but it wasn’t especially scenic from where I stood well above it. Marilyn and I tried finding the Lost Wall and the Half and Half Wall many years ago, but I don’t think we ever found them.
We finally got up to the ridge. The trail to the ridge is very steep, loose in spots, and occasionally difficult to follow. I had hiked it before and knew which ways not to go this time.
We found this interesting rock formation on the west side of the ridge:
A view to the north:
The East End, the top of Gardener’s Wall, Weaver’s Needle, Glass Dome, Tom’s Thumb, and the Rist are all visible in this photo. The Rist is the large pile of rocks at the far right in this photo.
A closer view of Tom’s Thumb and The Rist:
The trail continues along the ridge and then descends somewhat on the west side of The Rist. The trail then gets confusing, but Bob did some exploration and found a good trail that lead us to the northwest side of Tom’s Thumb. The class 4 route aptly named West Corner can be seen in this photo. It’s the easy looking ramp up leading up and rightward in this photo. This was my very first climb in Arizona back in the late eighties It was also my second time rappelling. (My first time rappelling was off of a railroad trestle in Iowa. We were getting set up to rappel of the bridge when we heard a train coming. We ran towards the train and jumped off the bridge only slightly before it got to the bridge!)
A rock formation to the north of Tom’s Thumb:
Another view of the north (or maybe still northwest?) side of Tom’s Thumb. My vantage point is northeast of where it was in the earlier photo.
We met two other hikers coming up the Tom’s Thumb access trail used by most folks who want to visit Tom’s Thumb. They took this photo of the three of us in front of Tom’s Thumb. We returned the favor and took a photo of them.
We ended up hiking the trail off to the left in the photo below. It’s another access trail that leads to the top of Gardener’s Wall.
A look back at Tom’s Thumb from the trail leading over to Gardener’s Wall:
We encountered a sign which showed us the way to get to the bottom of Gardener’s Wall. On the way down, we passed this large overhanging rock:
This is (part of) the base of Gardener’s Wall.
To descend from the base of Gardener’s Wall, you have to crawl down into a “cave”. It’s not a real cave, but is actually an area covered with some large boulders. It’s cool and out of the sun though. The crack with daylight in the photo below is the way out.
Further scrambling is required after exiting the “cave”:
I took this photo of the opposite side of the valley as we were descending from Gardener’s Wall.
We came to a fork in the trail. I picked the right fork which lead to this area shown in the photo below. My recollection is that the left path leads to an even steeper rock to climb up, over, and back down again.
Another view of Troon and Pinnacle Peak:
We got back to the Tom’s Thumb Trail, hiked down, and discovered that our total distance was still under four miles. We bumped it up a bit further by hiking out to take a look at the trail leading up to Morrell’s Wall. This a rock formation in the Morrell’s Wall Parking Lot Area. There’s no parking lot next to this area any longer, but it still retains the name.
A more expansive view of the Morrell’s Wall Parking Lot Area. There are good climbs both to the left and right of the pair of stacked boulders about three fifths of the way from the left edge of the photo. One is Back to the Wall, 5.7, to the left of the stacked boulders. To the right is Seven Up, also 5.7. Joe and I have done a bolted route on the stacked boulders which might be a 5.6. There are some even easier routes off to the right.
I considered going all the way up to Morrell’s Wall, but we decided to save that for another day. We ended up hiking only 4.67 miles with 1500 feet of total ascent.
Another photo from Friday’s hike…
Nick, Bob, Doug, Janet, Linda, and I met at the Eagle’s Nest trailhead. We hiked nearly ten miles and had nearly 2000 feet of total ascent on our hike utilizing the Dixie Mine, Sonoran, Promenade, and Western Loop Trails.
A view of a water tower from the Sonoran Trail:
We were resting part way up the Western Loop Trail when I took this photo of the portion of the McDowells comprising the East End and Tom’s Thumb. You can just make out Tom’s Thumb perhaps a quarter of the way over from the right edge of the photo.
Linda, Janet, Bob, and Nick taking a break.
Nearing the high point of the Western Loop Trail…
A view of Red Mountain from the top of the Western Loop Trail. There is a trail which leads to an overlook. We spent very little time there because there were quite a lot of insects at the overlook.
Linda took this photo of Janet, Bob, me, and Nick at the overlook:
A view of Sunrise Peak where we hiked last week:
We’re on the Promenade Trail in the photo below. It’s an old jeep road.
On the way back, I took a photo of the entrance to the Western Loop Trail. We hiked that segment earlier in the hike.
A section of the Sonoran Trail has a short stretch of slippery rock. The trail builders decided to put in a chain handrail at this point.
There are long uphill stretches on the way out and on the way back. The photo below shows Nick, Janet, Bob, and Linda near the bottom of the most sustained uphill segment on the way back.
Linda took this photo of a blossoming barrel cactus plant:
A Wolfberry bush…
A view of Four Peaks:
Marilyn and I rode the Pemberton Trail at McDowell Mountain Park this morning. Conditions were awesome when we started, but got quite windy near the end. We probably should have started half an hour earlier.
These first three photos are views from the Boulder Trail as I approached the Marcus Landslide Trail. (I left the Pemberton for a while to ride up in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve.)
The photo, below, shows a few of the many boulders along the Boulder Trail.
This photo, below, looks across the slide area of the Marcus Landslide.
This is the same boulder in the first photo, but with Rock Knob in the background to the right of the boulder. My ride took me down the Rock Knob Trail where I got to ride past that formation.
A view of the Palo Verde tree and bench (and my bike) at the top of the Bluff Trail. I only rode perhaps a hundred yards of the Bluff Trail – just enough to get up to that tree on top of a small hill which affords a great view of the area.
The newly constructed section of the Pemberton Trail has some interesting rock formations along the trail. I rode ahead of Marilyn, so that I could get set up to take these two photos of her riding through that area.
Bob, Sarge, Linda, Janet, Nick, and I met Friday morning to hike the Sunrise Trail starting at the trailhead at the far east end of Via Linda. It was windy with a lot of haze. We ended up hiking up to Sunrise Peak and then a bit beyond to the turnoff to the 136th St spur. We hiked down the spur for nearly a quarter mile before returning. Our total distance was six miles with a little over 2000 feet of total ascent.
Atop Sunrise Peak:
Linda took this photo of me and Janet:
After reaching the top, we descended and walked over to this hitching post.
Sarge, with Sunrise Peak in the background:
We saw a four-headed barrel cactus on the way back. (It may four separate ones that grew too close together.)
Red Mountain was difficult to see through the haze. We should be able to see some of the Superstition Mountains too, but they’re not visible at all.
A view on the way down. The blurred bush off to the right is due to the strong winds; the shutter speed was 1/60 sec, but this was not fast enough to freeze the motion.
Friday’s hike took us out to the Dixie Mine, past the nearby petroglyphs, and then past even more petroglyphs where we got to scramble up a section of smooth stone in the wash.
Seven of us were on Friday’s hike. From left to right are Bill, Amy, Linda, Marilyn, Doug, and Jane. Marilyn and Jane were visiting from Mesa.
Prickly pear blossom:
Some of the saguaros are starting to bloom!
The rest of the group got ahead of me a few times as I practiced photography:
These small reddish-orange berries are wolfberries. I haven’t tried any, but I’m told that they’re edible and sort of taste like a tomato.
The brittlebush is starting to wilt, but the many of the ocotillo now have blossoms.
The top of Thompson Peak is framed by the blooming creosote bush.
Ranger Amy tells us the story of the Swiss construction company who ended up constructing three roads, each successively less steep up to the top of Thompson Peak. I have hiked up the current road once. I shudder to think of what it would’ve been like to go up either of the earlier two attempts as the present road is still very steep! Scars of the earlier road attempts are still visible on Thompson Peak.
This is the main petroglyph panel near the mine. There are a few more petroglyphs scattered above, below, and to the sides of this panel.
Doug and Bill wait for the rest of us to examine the petroglyphs:
A cropped version of the above photo:
We passed this area on our way to the next petroglyph panel:
The petroglyphs at the next area are scattered about. Patience and a willingness to examine the rock closely is required for finding some of them. Here, Amy has made her way past some waist-high brush to get a better look at some of them:
It appears that the Hohokam drew a lizard here. I have no idea what the other marking might mean.
A section of smooth, water polished rock adds a challenge to the hike:
It takes some looking, but there are at least four areas of petoglyphs on this wall. There’s a wiggly line that might represent a snake towards the upper right of the photo. They’re difficult to see, but when I zoomed in on the unscaled version, I saw smaller wiggly lines below the larger one – perhaps these represent baby snakes?
There appears to be a drawing of someone falling head-first in this photo. Perhaps it’s a warning to not go too high? (It would’ve taken some additional scrambling to get up above the drawing.)
Amy poses for a photo at the top of the “waterfall” area. (I’m not sure that it’s really a waterfall…)
A look at what’s ahead of us:
Amy takes a photo looking down and past the area we just scrambled up:
The canyon was still scenic as we continued on:
We had returned to the Dixie Mine Trail when I took this photo:
California Buckwheat:
Purple-flowered Rhatany growing amidst a Christmas Cholla. Amy told us that it can be a kind of parasite, though I saw some growing by itself today when I rode my bike.
Friday’s Hike was outside the park, starting at the Tom’s Thumb Trailhead, though part of the group may have set foot inside McDowell Mountain Park at some point. Eight of us started on the Tom’s Thumb Trail; we all turned left onto the Mesquite Canyon Trail after a short ways. We parted ways shortly after turning east on the Feldspar Trail. Linda, Janet, Bob, and I continued up Mesquite Canyon while Amy, Bill, Doug, and Michael continued on the Feldspar Trail on their way to hike the Marcus Landslide Trail.
This is a photo of the group at the start of the hike. From left to right are Bill, Janet, Linda, Bob, Doug, Amy, and Michael.
Here is an uncropped version which shows Morrell’s Wall above.
Linda, Janet, Bob, and I split off just after passing this large boulder near the intersection of the Mesquite Canyon Trail with the Feldspar Trail. Amy is posing beside it in this photo.
A view of Morrell’s Wall from further up Mesquite Canyon:
Looking back at Troon, off in the distance, as we climb out of Mesquite Canyon; the rock formation with the three large boulders on top is the Morell’s Wall Parking Lot Area. (There’s no longer a parking lot nearby, but there was at one time.) Marilyn and I used to climb there a lot. There is a 5.7 route that tops out just left of those boulders called Seven Up.
There is a prominent pinnacle halfway across the photo which I call the Thumbnail Pinnacle. (There’s a climb on it called The Thumbnail.) That pinnacle and the walls just below it form a climbing area known as Hog Heaven. Over the course of the next hour or so after taking this photo, we made our way slightly past and then above Hog Heaven. When Bob and I hiked this trail back in January, we had an easy time seeing it. It was more difficult on Friday since the trail was obscured by vegetation that had grown since then.
I don’t remember what Linda and Janet were looking at, but apparently they found it entertaining:
Red Mountain is visible off in the distance through a gap in the boulders:
A good view of Weaver’s Needle and the Flatiron off in the distance:
Taking a break beside one of the many small hills along the way:
A somewhat closer view of the Thumbnail Pinnacle and the walls of Hog Heaven, off to the left, below it:
New Mexico Thistle:
There were sections where we gained more feet vertically than we did horizontally. There were also some fairly high steps from time to time.
A view of the Marcus Landslide Trail Loop. The Boulder Trail and part of the Pemberton Trail can even be seen in this photo. I thought we might see Amy’s group on the trail below, but I think they were probably done hiking it by the time we got to this point. Submarine Rock can be seen about a third of the way from the right and a third of the way from the bottom.
Bob, with Hog Heaven’s “Main Wall” behind him:
Bob, Linda, and Janet, just below the Thumbnail Pinnacle!
Bob took this photo of me photographing the Thumbnail Pinnacle. Unfortunately, my footing atop that boulder was just precarious enough that I had trouble getting a good shot. I have a photo of Bob, Linda, and Janet beside the pinnacle on that side, but it’s out of focus.
Linda’s photo of me on that rock:
Thompson Peak is to the left with numerous antennae. Scottsdale is in the background.
Another view of the Thumbnail Pinnacle from somewhat higher up; it has a distinctive shape that can be seen from the park and even some parts of Fountain Hills, but it looks totally different from this vantage point.
We passed this small rock outcropping as we continued up to the ridge which would eventually lead us to the highest point of the McDowell’s:
We eventually lost sight of the Thumbnail Pinnacle as we continued up the ridge. The place where I stood to take this photo was close to the last such vantage point.
The ridge still had a lot of boulders to negotiate, sometimes around and sometimes over.
Bob, Linda, and Janet just after crossing to the southwest side of the ridge:
We started seeing a lot of these black and yellow caterpillars; I think it might be a Striped Garden Caterpillar (Trichordestra legitima).
A view looking back along the ridge we had just traversed. We started on the northeast side to the left and eventually crossed over to the southwest side to the right. Weaver’s Needle, The Flatiron, Red Mountain, and even the Fountain Hill’s fountain lake can also be seen in this photo.
Linda is sitting on the East End summit boulder, the highest point in the McDowells.
Linda took this photo of me showing where I stood while taking her photo…
There is a cave, of sorts, underneath another large boulder that’s near the summit boulder. Linda took this photo of me in that cave:
The cave had a sort of window…
A reddish-orange Mariposa Lily with Tom’s Thumb in the background. (Thanks to Bill Craig for the correct identification! I had originally identified this as a poppy.)
Tom’s Thumb, The Rist, Glass Dome, and Gardner’s Wall. It’s possible that some of the other rock formations have names too, but I don’t know what they are. Tom’s Thumb is the largest pinnacle situated near the upper-right rules of thirds point. Gardener’s Wall is below and slightly to the right of Tom’s Thumb in this photo. (If you view it from the trailhead, however, Gardener’s Wall will be below and to the left of Tom’s Thumb.) The Rist is the smaller cluster of rocks to the right of Tom’s Thumb. Glass Dome is near the left edge of this photo, protruding somewhat above the ridge line.
Once we got back to the Tom’s Thumb trail, we hiked up towards Tom’s Thumb. No of us were eager to go to the Thumb that day, so we took a look at a nearby cave / shelter instead. Instead of taking the main Tom’s Trail, we chose a more interesting route along the Gardener’s Wall access trail:
Bob and I had both noticed this boulder with a saguaro beside it in the past; I think I may even have posted a photo of it at some point. I think this photo turned out well, despite the sun being high in the sky – it was almost noon when I took this photo. Troon and Pinnacle Peak are both visible in the background.
Globe mallow flowers:
Prickly Pear Blossoms:
I think this is Miniature Woolystar (Eriastrum diffusum):
When we got back to the intersection of the Feldspar and Tom’s Thumb trails, we hadn’t even gone four miles! We decided to add in some easy mileage by hiking the Feldspar over to the Marcus Landslide Trail providing a circuitous route back to the trailhead. Despite that added distance, we had only hiked about 5.3 miles when we finished. But we had over 1700 feet of elevation gain! I took this photo, below, from the Marcus Landslide Trail. The Thumbnail Pinnacle can be seen about a third of the way over from the left side of the photo.
Janet, Bob, Marilyn, and I hiked up to Tom’s Thumb on Friday. On the way back, we took a side trip to hike up the East End, which is the highest point in the McDowells.
Below is the view of the McDowells as seen from near the trailhead. Tom’s Thumb is about a third of the way from the right edge of the photo. Gardener’s Wall is in the middle. Morrell’s is at the far left.
Poppies and Lupines. I don’t know what the white flowers are.
Bob, Janet, and I split off from the main trail to hike the climber’s access trail leading to Gardener’s Wall. We didn’t go to Gardener’s Wall, but past it, eventually rejoining the main trail. This is a view looking to the northeast, not far from the main trail. In fact, the Tom’s Thumb Trail is still clearly visible in this photo. Marilyn continued on the Tom’s Thumb Trail and rejoined us later.
Another view of Gardener’s Wall on the left and Tom’s Thumb, above and to the right.
We passed this large boulder which reminded us of a dinosaur head:
The trail became steep and we got to scramble over boulders on our way to rejoin the Tom’s Thumb Trail.
Janet and Bob scrambling up a steep section:
A view of Glass Dome from the east. We had rejoined the Tom’s Thumb Trail at this point.
A view of the west side of Glass Dome:
The Tom’s Thumb Trail continues onto the Scottsdale side of the McDowells, but we didn’t go that way. Instead, we took the climber’s access trail to Tom’s Thumb. This photo was taken when we fairly close to the Thumb. Parts of Scottsdale can be seen at the far right. The Tom’s Thumb Trail – the part we didn’t hike – is visible in this photo too.
Bob, Janet, and I started making our way around Tom’s Thumb, but we stopped when the trail became difficult to follow. When we came back, we found Marilyn waiting for us an the large boulder beside the Thumb.
On our way down, we saw these reddish-orange flowers called globemallows. (Thanks to Susan Davis for the flower identification.)
Bob, Janet, and I took a side trip to the top of the East End. This photo was taken near the top. Thompson’s Peak and several lesser peaks can be seen in this photo.
Janet atop the East End summit boulder. The side of Gardner’s Wall is visible above and to the right of Bob’s head. Tom’s Thumb is also visible in this photo as are parts of Scottsdale.
Bob takes his turn standing atop the East End summit boulder.
A view of Glass Dome, Tom’s Thumb, and lots and lots of boulders as we were descending from the East End.
Looking up at Glass Dome through some poppies:
As we were hiking down the Tom’s Thumb Trail, I noticed that the side of one of the hills was yellow with poppies. Also, at various times during my hike, I had been noticing that the desert lower down looked yellow too.
