I liked the idea of hiking past the East End Lovers on this Valentines day so that’s what we did. All in all, we hiked a loop which was just under 9 miles. We went up Toms Thumb; down East End; down to the Windmill on Windmill Trail; continued out Windmill to Coachwhip Trail; continued on Coachwhip to the Pemberton trail (McDowell Regional Park); took the Pemberton to a horse trail leading into the Rock Knob area of the Preserve and then followed a horse trail back over the parking lot.
Combseed flowers are now blanketing the ground almost everywhere. We also saw a Desert Hyacinth, Filaree and Wolfberry blooms. I also got a better shot of the Ragged Rock Flower located in a wash close to the Windmill. Desert Wishbone bush is getting taller and should be blooming any day. All in all….a fabulous day!
East End Lovers
Combseed
Filaree
Desert Hyacinth (bluedick)
Wolfberry
Ragged Rock Flower
The greatest thing about living here is the tremendous amount of diversity in terrain within a fairly short distance! This waterfall is only about half an hour from us in the Tonto National Forest. There is always water here although it’s just a trickle in later summer. We assume the water is the result of snow melt north of us. Whatever the source, it’s a great hike that’s just over 2 miles round trip. Easy going down but tough coming out! So…here are some photos from our hike yesterday. I posted more than I normally do as a make-up for not posting all last week 🙂
