I am constantly amazed how much there is to see on the Linda Vista Trails – it is easy to focus on the noise and proximity to town, but if nothing else the views make the Linda Vista Trailhead a worthy destination…
The Tram Road in Sabino Canyon is not always my favorite – but today… Clouds and beautiful colors in the sky – Phainopepla in the trees – easy walking.
Good light makes it easy to see the grey color of the female Phainolpepla and the shiny black of the males – sometimes perched, calling, at the top of the trees, sometimes flying, flashing the light patches under their wings. The Phainopepla are here for the Mistletoe berries – they eat the outer layers and expel the the sticky seed giving the parasitic Mistletoe a chance to spread.
The easy walking on the tram road is appreciated today – with limited time I tried, and failed, to get to Bridal Veil Falls and after turning around under a just-out-of-reach deflated balloon stuck in a tree in Esperero Canyon (the first trash I had seen in miles) I was exhausted and happy to reach the tram road…
It is always a treat to start the Pontatoc Trail and see water flowing in the first wash – as you might expect farther up the Pontatoc Canyon Trail there was water at each crossing of Pontatoc Canyon. New-to-me on this hike was watching the moonrise over Pontatoc Ridge – I wonder if, or how many times, it has risen behind me on other hikes, but tired and staring down at the rocky trail in front of me I missed it…
With water flowing all over the range we hiked to Maiden Pools to see the water – rushing, as expected – but the sunset and night in the canyon were the highlights of the hike…
Moving away from the static of the rushing water in Sutherland Wash we can hear the slow, constant, distant, repeating gunshots – not close by, not a concern… not even inappropriate – but certainly an unwelcome intrusion as we try to carefully and respectfully contemplate the petroglyphs in the Sutherland Wash Rock Art District.
After visiting this area last year I spent some time reading about and looking for information – some of which is included in the post – this year my mind wanders to two books – John P. Wilson’s Islands in the Desert (an amazing history of the mountains of Southern Arizona) and Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian (a fictional journey thru the borderlands of the mid 1800s based on the Glanton Gang). In both books the landscape is a stunningly beautiful – maybe even magical in Blood Meridian, but in both books there is also terrible and stunning violence – sacred and the profane, petroglyphs and gunfire…
