Beware of Cholla
New hikers to our area are first and foremost warned to stay away from Cholla.
Cholla creatures seem to give warnings too 🙂
Posts from the ‘McDowell Sonoran Preserve’ Category
Jun 9
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Jun 8
Visiting Frankenstone
Sunday’s hike took us past many of my favorite boulder faces including Frankenstone.
CLICK HERE to see more of my boulder faces.
Jun 7
Climbers Trails
Climbers Trails are meant for climbers but are also open to experienced hikers. Sometimes you can see the trail, sometimes not! (Superstitions on the Horizon)
Jun 6
High in the McDowells
With help from my favorite hiking partner, Chris, I finally made it to the highest point in the McDowell Mountains yesterday (4069ft). We started at 4:45am from the North Access and followed a climber’s trail through Mesquite Canyon, up over the 3 Svens, past Marcus Landslide and then up to East End. There’s a Geo cache hidden in the rocks up there with an “I made it” book and I was stoked to be able to add my name 🙂 Rather than go back the way we came, we then followed another climber’s route over to the Tom’s Thumb trail which took us back to the trail head. Four hours and a little more than 1500 ft elevation gain….it was awesome!
We saw deer and the remains of a deer which reminded us there are Mountain Lions up there but we didn’t see one (I was disappointed!). We did, however, see this guy which was pretty cool too. We had stopped to look at the view and after a few minutes, I did what a good photographer should always do and that is to turn around and shoot in the other direction too. This is what I saw. I was so excited I could hardly hold my camera still and wished I could have stayed to see him take off.
Sigma 18-250mm OS (perfect lens for long hikes), ISO 400, f/8, 1/640th sec.
May 22
Bloody Net-winged Beetle
I was lucky to capture two shots of my prize Bloody Net-winged Beetle as he was leaving. Canon 7D, 24-70mm lens with 500D close-up filter. ISO 400, 1/1000th sec at f/5.6
May 21
Butterflies and Beetles
Yesterday was the last official day for the flora survey until after the hot weather. Although I did get some photos of flowers, my prize captures yesterday were a couple of butterflies and a gorgeous red beetle! At upper left is a Marine Blue Butterfly. Lower left is a Mormon Metalmark Butterfly. It took a lot of googling to ID the beetle but I finally found that it’s a Bloody Net-Winged Beetle. What a name!
May 14
Canyon Wren
I finally saw a Canyon Wren up close and personal yesterday! I was hiking in the north access area of the Preserve with several of my bird enthusiast friends and when we heard a Canyon Wren call (very distinctive!), one of the guys used an iPhone app to call back to him. They had conversation going for quite a while 🙂 P&S zoomed into 560mm equivalent. Grainy and not very sharp but I’m happy to have it!
May 6
Violet Snapdragon
There is nothing more exciting for this wanna-be botanist than to find a species I’ve never seen before. It doesn’t happen much anymore because I’m exploring in the Preserve so often but I was lucky this past Saturday. While looking for another species, I came across a Violet Snapdragon (Sairocarpus nuttallianus) growing right next to the one I had been looking for! Of course I had no idea what it was so I went to my main source, Steve Jones, and he came through as always. Thanks Steve! And thanks to Chris for helping me hike back up to get a better look yesterday. (It’s a very steep trail)
What look like hairs all over the plant are actually tiny tack-like glands. Very cool.
