I’ve finally reached the point where I feel somewhat comfortable hiking again, although not the trails we originally intended to hike. I had to do more research to find trails that are less difficult and don’t involve boulder scrambling.
We started off slowly with a 3.5 mile trail in Lost Dutchman State Park. There was a fair amount of elevation gain, so it was still a work out.
Everywhere you look around here, there is another pretty view.
That hike went well, so we tackled a more difficult hike the next day-the Ballentine Trail. It was more of a challenge, to say the least.
We started off among the Saguaro Cacti. When most of us think desert, we think barren, but the Sonoran Desert is full of life and is very green at certain times. The beautiful Saguaro (pronounced Sah-wah-row) can live to be about 200 years old and doesn’t start growing arms until it’s about 70 years old. Their root system is just beneath the surface and extends out up to 70 feet, to collect what little moisture there is in the ground.
This picture shows a little bit of why this trail was challenging. Paul is standing near the top of the rise. It was a 7.5 mile trail, with 2000 ft of elevation gain.
The views from the top made it worth it. This area is appropriately called Boulder Flats, since it was strewn with huge boulders. Paul climbed around them, I didn’t.
The other day we moved from Mesa, where we had been staying in a “4 star” RV Resort, to Lake Pleasant Regional Park. The best part about the resort was that we had a grapefruit tree on our site, and could pick as many as we wanted. YUM! Our trailer is the one in the middle of the picture. This is the kind of place we really like to stay.
We debated trying to get the boat out to take advantage of this beautiful lake, but the coolish (it hits the low 70s but only for an hour or so, then it gets cool) weather and the fact that its a two person job to “deploy” it, changed our minds.
We tried another hike at Lake Pleasant, but not every hike turns out the way we want it. After driving 7 miles down a primitive “road” to get to the trailhead, the road dead ended at the water’s edge, with no way to get across. The road was an interesting trip, making us glad our truck has 4 wheel drive, and very high clearance!
We haven’t given up on that hike- we have better directions and we’ll try it again tomorrow.
In the meantime we are enjoying visiting with friends and family. Yesterday we visited with Elaine and Robert, our friends from England. Since they are hikers too, we combined the visit with a 7 mile hike. As usual, when with friends, I don’t take many pictures. I’ll try to do better with that in the next week or so. We have plans to see Robert and Elaine several more times in the next week or so, as we are all staying in and around the Phoenix area. Tonight we are having dinner with my cousin Linda and her husband. Looking forward to that- we don’t see each other very often!
The other night we had one of the most spectacular sunsets we’ve seen in a very long time, and we see some great ones!
