What an amazing day we had! Chris, I and our friend Barry spent over six hours hiking up and around Tom’s Thumb and The Lookout trail from the North side. My goal was to photograph Trailing Windmills which I was told were out at The Lookout and we weren’t disappointed. They were everywhere! Unfortunately,not blooming as much as they have been but it appearing there are still blooms to come. The amazing bonus was seeing my first Desert Mariposa Lily! I yelled at my friend Barry (pictured below) saying “look at that really orange poppy over there!”. Very exciting 🙂
Tag Archives: toms thumb
elevated flora part2
Thanks again to Steve Jones for identifying my mysterious yellow flower. It is Xanthisma gracilis aka Slender Goldenweed. I’m also including a few other specimens from yesterday.
elevated flora
Chris and I spent all yesterday afternoon exploring Tom’s Thumb which is the latest trail to open in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. Exhausting but very exciting for me because the elevation and rocky terrain meant seeing plants I’ve only seen on the North State Trust Land. Besides all the common wildflowers seen on the lower trails, we also saw the following: Miner’s Lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata), Wild Cucumber (Gila manroot), Desert Anemone (Anemone tuberosa), White Tidy Tips (Layia glandulosa), Lemmon’s ragwort (Senecio lemmonii), and one, as yet, unidentified yellow flower which I hope to know by the end of the day. Also seen were two types of ferns. There are probably others but two were most noticeable. One was Spiny Cliffbrake (Pellaea trucata) and, because of its texture, I’m guessing that the other is Lindheimer’s Lip Fern (Cheilanthes lindheimeri)
happy new year
Happy New Year! Hope you all are doing something you enjoy today! We hiked one of my favorite trails this morning….Tom’s Thumb in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. It’s less than two miles but very steep and technical.
rock climbing in the preserve
Enjoyed a great hike to Tom’s Thumb yesterday. Along the way, we saw these guys traveling a different route. Red shirts make photographers happy since they add instant contrast to the photo especially in the case of this dull overcast day. Thanks Mr. rock climber 🙂