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3月6日 Cliff dwellings in Rogers CanyonThe Heavenly Hikers went back to the Superstition Wilderness this Saturday. It took a couple of hours of rough dirt road driving to get to the trailhead called Reavis Ranch. The Rogers Canyon trail splits off and follows the canyon. It's mostly downhill going into and down the canyon. Which means it's a tough uphill hike coming back! The prize is some accessible cliff dwellings at the turnaround point. A long day - 6 hours of driving, and 6 hours of hiking, but worth it!
We explored three caves. One had several rooms, but it was pretty dark. Wish we'd had a flashlight. We had lunch in the front yard of one of the dwellings, looking back up the canyon. Pretty special! 2月23日 To The Top Of Black MountainYesterday, Ed and I climbed to the top of Black Mountain. WOW. It’s not often I get to the top of a mountain peak with a full 360 view. Despite some haze/smog we could see Four Peaks to the Southeast; follow Cave Creek Road South into Phoenix, turn and watch the same road meander around Black Mountain, through Cave Creek, into Carefree, and slice off to the Tonto Forrest. We could see some of our regular hiking targets like the Go John Trail in the CC Recreation area and Elephant Butte in Spur Cross.
The directions are simple: take School House Road till it ends and start walking in a straight line till you get to the top. For me, it was a very difficult hike; continuous upward climbing, with no level stretches to reload your muscles and your lungs; up a path that is barely scuffled into the rock strewn mountainside. Yet we kept meeting people who claim to do the hike on almost a daily basis! The path roughly follows a long spine or ridge. From a distance this ridge seems to gently rise to the top. Up close and personal it’s tricky. As you climb, you have what seems to be the peak in sight. It stays in front of you and seems reachable. As you near it, you realize that the line of sight has tricked you and the apparent peak is just a spiny hillock and you are only 2/3rds of the way to the real peak! 1月25日 A hiker needs good equipment . . .I've been breaking in my hiking hat and shoes - think i made some good choices! My old hiking shoes were just heavy duty sneakers. No real support, no foot protection. Result is sore feet during and after a hike. Not good. Looked at REI and The Hiking Shack. Went to the Outdoor Warehouse at the suggestion of Donna Duck. Good suggestion.
Found my hat. A Barmah hat. Made in Australia so it has the "outback cache". Leather brim and top - mesh crown. Great fit and I look cool! Around $35 which seemed a bargain. My new hiking boots are by Danner. The 6 inch Instigator Brown GTX. Around $150 which seemed an extravagance, but now feels like a good investment. I've been breaking them in for the last couple of weeks, and like them. Great protection for my feet - feel I can scrabble over any rocky path and not be afraid of my foot sliding or ankle rolling, or worse yet getting dinged by rocks that seem to jump at your toes. Good protection makes a happy hiker. Speaking of hiking . . .Ed and I have gotten back to our weekly hiking outing. Today we explored a possible hike for him to take visiting grandkids on. the specifications were: short enough for young attention spans, mild hiking trail, and something interesting to see. Took him to the Clay Mine that I showed Tim and Tom when they visited from New Jersey. It's a relatively short hike with an interesting mine to check out. Nice place at the crest of a hill for the required snack stop - it overlooks a horse coral for a trail riding outfit.
Hiking the Dutchman Trail-Black Mesa loop in the Superstition Wilderness.Saturday January 7, I joined a group called the Heavenly Hikers, from All saints Lutheran Church in Phoenix on a hike in the Superstitions. Great group, great hike. The hike was described as easy to moderate, but I found it challenging. A longer hike than I've had in quite a while with moderate climbs throughout the route. I was ready for it to end, but very glad I stayed the course. The Superstitions Wilderness is an awesome area, filled with great hikes and sights. This loop had some great views of Weaver's Needle. There is a large patch of Chollla's, taller than any I've seen before, that the group called a Cholla Forest. It's on the Mesa, about 2/3 of the way through the loop. We hit the trail about 9:30 AM, and got back to the cars around 4 PM. Learned a little more about hiking and my capacity. A welcome stop for a beer at the Mammoth Bar at Goldfield made the hour's drive home bearable. 7月1日 Can you hike a museum?Summer heat and the Cave Creek Complex fire have taken away our semi-weekly hike. So today we re-toured the Pueblo Grande Museum and restoration in downtown Phoenix.
http://www.ci.phoenix.az.us/PUEBLO/pueblo1.html (Didn't take the camera, and couldn't find any good images on the I'net).
The site is a mound and surrounding compound including some buildings and a ball court. Attributed to the Hohokam, and dating back as recently as the 1400's, this mound grew over time. It seems like ground level buildings were filled with trash, debris, dirt, and then built upon. Eventually it's a large mesa like mound that has the latest course of buildings on top. Were the buildings ceremonial? Did the tribal elite live at the top? The bulk of the tribe lived in homes that surrounded the mound like a sprawling suburb, essentially spilling Northward.
We got there to open the place and tour the mound and outside complex first. Then went into the A/C and toured the exhibit. Very well done.
Hard to imagine this in an ancient setting, by a flowing Salt River. Today it is sided by a city street and a train track, and is minutes from Sky Harbor Airport!
Now, where else can we go for a cooler summer hike?
6月19日 Petroglyphs are everywhere, but often hard to find.We try to get out regularly for a hike in the desert and mountains around Phoenix. One week my friend Ed picks the destination; next week it's my turn. We are both interested in the desert foothills geology and (very amateur) archeology. It's good exercise and we enjoy looking for ruins, traces of civilization and other interesting sites.
The rock art are generally Petroglyphs, created by scratching into a patina (called desert varnish) that covers some rock faces. Large rocks with several drawings are called panels. These Petroglyphs are dated between 800-1400, or about 1,000 years old. There is a lot of informed speculation about the peoples that created this art, but little certainty.
Deer Valley Rock Art Center is a protected mountainside, covered in boulders, many of which have Petroglyphs. Known as the Hedgpeth Hills petroglyph site, it has over 1500 petroglyphs on nearly 600 boulders in a 47 acre nature preserve. It’s a very accessible way to see many examples of rock art. I find it difficult to get good pictures because of the surface fading, distances to the protected glyphs and lighting issues.
Spur Cross is an area recently set aside as a preserve, just outside Cave Creek. It was formerly a dude ranch, working ranch, among other things. Some nice trails range over a great countryside. The rock art and ruins are off trails, and less accessible.
The Petroglyph in the wall is on private property in an unincorporated area North of Cave Creek, and just outside the Tonto National Forrest. The ruins have been painstakingly, and lovingly reconstructed over the last 30 years. Seeing the rock art in the wall was a surprise. Nobody was sure whether the rock with art was placed in the wall, or if some long distant resident had scratched the coil into an appropriate rock already in the wall.
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