We hiked up the mountain you can see from camp. Supposed to be the most popular hike in the park. 4 miles, 2.100 vertical. We haven’t hiked this much vertical in along time. My legs are sore.
These 500 foot faces on this side of Granite Mountain are the best climbing in Arizona. They are also the nesting area for peregrin falcons, so they are closed to climbing till July. There was a big burn, lots of dead trees.
Really cool pink granite rocks here. John is trapped in this burnt out tree.
Some of the ponderosa’s survived the fire. The summit was this huge pile of rocks. We didn’t climb up, we could see it fine from the bottom.
John looking over, behind him is Skull Valley. The trail back down.
Rocks and dead trees. This one looked like it was screaming in agony.
Sunset was lovely from camp.
Lots of flowers blooming. Paintbrush, penstamen, claret cup cactus, asters. Senicio, lupines, vetch and mahonia.
Larkspur, purple nightshade and a lizard. The agave plants live for 10 years, then send up this HUGE stalk to bloom, then die. Stalk starting, full stock blooming over the tiny plant (no wonder they die, takes everything they have to bloom!), dead stalk still standing, flower and the plant before the bloom.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.