The summer rains are long gone and it is hot – too hot for low-on-the-mountain Soldier Trail I guess and, just after the overlook of Soldier Canyon, the easy access to the water and carved rock are too tempting, my turn around point on today’s (short) hike.
Today what really catches my attention is the beautiful ‘false fall’ leaves of the Desert Cotton (Gossypium thurberi) – stunning beautiful fall colors dotting the hillside, a cruel false signal of fall with so many hot days still to come…
The Brittlebush has lined the Pontatoc Canyon Trail with yellow flowers filling the gaps between all the other flowers – it has been fun this year to make enough visits to the lower part of the trail to see the wildflower season start/grow/explode along the trail!
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…
