Between Facebook updates, writing magazine articles regularly, and updating two blogs- one of DJ adventures and the other of family adventures, I sometimes feel a bit talked out and I don't want this to become simply a photo journal. We do love the desert and it sure is beautiful in the Spring.
I (Curtis) hike a great deal on my own too and I do some more strenuous trails but we have a couple of favorite family trails that are close to home, with a light to medium strenuousness level and they aren't loops so that you can just go a short distance if you are tired or pressed for time and just turn around and head back when ready and there's not a specific vista that you have to hike to to make it worth the trip. The scenery is great all along the trail from beginning to end.
Even though we have been on these trails many times, it looks different in the morning than it does in the afternoon, it looks different throughout the seasons. We feel really blessed that this is just 10 minutes north of our home.
This is a Saguaro cactus. You can tell that this one is full of water because the accordion folds are spread quite far apart- such that you can stick your finger in and feel the rubbery skin of the cactus. Late in the summer, the folds may contract and get so close that the quills are nearly touching and you wouldn't want to attempt touching it. The root system of a cactus may only go down a couple of feet but it may spread out several feet in all directions. I once watched some time lapse video of a Saguaro cactus drinking up a desert rainstorm over the course of a couple of days. The folds expanded and expanded so that it could survive 110 degree heat for 2 months at the height of the Summer.
I didn't get a pic of another cactus that may have not had as much water in its system, with the accordion folds collapsed, but this is what they look like when they die... I bet you didn't know that they had a skeleton like that inside of them.
Lots of life out there. It's been a fairly dry winter so there is already concern of a harsh fire season for some of the higher elevations with Ponderosa Pines. Even lower elevations with desert plant life can burn. There are lots of Mesquite and Palo Verde trees and other brush. It would be a tragedy to have a fire out there.
The reward of a hiker is that you get to lay on a rock and rest your joints. I say it a great reward!
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