North Access Loop

Sep 12

North Access Loop

Yesterday morning, Chris and I hiked what I call the North Access Loop (of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve). For those interested, we started at the North Access trail head and hiked up Tom’s Thumb Trail to the junction of East End Trail, turned left and headed down East End to the Windmill Trail junction; turned left on Windmill and continued to Coachwhip entering the Regional Park; stayed on Coachwhip to the Pemberton Trail; followed Pemberton around crossing back into the Preserve; took a spur over to the Marcus Landslide Trail and then back to the parking area. All in all, it’s just under 9 miles. Whew! So how long did it take? Just a few minutes over 4 hours. That’s slow for Chris but darned good for me considering the elevation gains. My Crossfit training is paying off 🙂

DroidX capture at start of descent on East End Trail. See how steep it is?!

Sep 11

Favorite Things

A composite of two of my favorite things. Boulder faces (left) and trees. The tree is a DroidX image I captured the other day on my walk in my neighborhood and the wonderful boulder face is near the Preserve.

Sep 9

1 Comment

Bird in Wildflowers

A montage containing a sweet little bird, two photos of dried flowers, blowing grasses and some rusty metal.

Sep 5

1 Comment

Gambel’s Quail at Sunrise

I put a Cholla Skeleton outside the dining room window knowing birds would use as a perch and I’d have a good chance of getting some nice images. The hard part, though, is keeping the birds from seeing me! It’s no problem in the afternoon but at sunrise, they take off at the slightest movement so I typically crawl on the floor until I reach the window and then slowly get up. Sometimes I make it but not this time. I like the result anyway 🙂

Sep 3

Rock Knob

Rock Knob with Teddy Bear Cholla in the foreground captured during a hike this morning.

DroidX photo

Sep 2

Desert Tortoise 2

Another HDR shot of the Desert Tortoise I encountered on Tom’s Thumb Trail last Sunday. He was moving during this exposure sequence so it was difficult to merge the exposures perfectly. This resulted in lots of ghosting but after tedious cloning and fringe removal and reducing color saturation, I did it. What a face 🙂

Aug 31

August Wildflowers

A summary of the Wildflowers I spotted on Sunday’s hike to Tom’s Thumb. Learn more about these and other Wildflowers in the Preserve in WILDFLOWERS and more.

Aug 30

Desert Tortoise

I hiked the north access trail to Tom’s Thumb yesterday with a goal of seeing what was blooming. I spotted several flowers (check tmorrow’s post) but I also came across this guy! There are lots of Desert Tortoise in the Preserve but they’re really good a hiding so this was a treat! The lighting was mixed so I used my Canon SX 1 to capture two exposures and combined them in Photomatix.

conservation photographer

Posts from the ‘Sonoran Desert’ Category