A Good First Hike

Each day we try to walk 10,000 steps.  Thursday we wanted a change in scenery from what we see walking around our resort.  The trailhead for the hieroglyphic trail isn't very far from our home and we have hiked this trail a number of times so we knew it would be a good place to start this winter.

At the end of the trail there are a number of hieroglyphics or petroglyphs on the stone wall.

Phoenix is really dry after the past summer.  This pond usually has water higher than the white lichen on these rocks.  Most of the lichen in the Superstition Mountains is usually fluorescent green so I was surprised to see this white growth.

The weather in southern Arizona has been spectacular for the past couple of weeks so we didn't leave for the hike until about 8 am.  We didn't have to get out earlier to avoid the heat but we could still wear shorts.

If you click this photo John took of me to enlarge it, you will see that there were a bunch of people sitting around on the hill.  In fact, I counted 14 people I could see from where we were sitting.  We learned they were from a college science class.  We must be hiking too early in the season or on the wrong day or something.  This trail is popular but we have never seen this many people in one place.

The flora on this trail includes prickly pear cactus, ocotillo, and cholla cactus.

We even found a bush with pink/magenta and orange bougainvillea flowers.

We enjoyed the hike, which is about 2 miles each way (8,000 steps or so total). We intend to try hiking once every week this winter. We went on very few hikes last year.