Hiking in Pinal County Arizona

Before all the trouble with the Coronovirus struck we did some hiking in the Arizona hills near Roadhaven.  Not as much as last season, but every other week or so Jacquelyn and I went on a hike with our Hiking Club.

 It's a lot of fun hiking in Arizona.  The terrain is beautiful, not big trees, but rocky rugged hills.  And the weather is almost always sunny.

 We're members of the Roadhaven Hiking Club and they have guides and sign-up sheets for 3 or 4 hikes a week.  You pick the one you want to go on and meet in the card room.  Then we carpool out to the trailhead.  The guides are all volunteers and they usually take us on a fairly fast pace.  We take walking sticks and I carry a backpack with water and snacks.

 Our first hike this year was Massacre Ridge.  This is where the Apaches ambushed a Spanish patrol returning from a gold mine and chased them up onto this ridge.  Eventually the Spanish were all killed or pushed off the ridge.

 Small nearby waterfall.

 As you can see the terrain is not smooth but very rocky and kind of treacherous if you get off the trail because of the rocks and cactus.

 Me by the waterfall.

 Our second hike was Picket Post hike.

 This hike was in some flats with trees.  But not the tall Douglas Fir trees like back home.  More like scrub trees.

 Lone Saguaro Cactus in the desolate desert scrub.

 The trail went alongside an ancient picket fence and hence the name of the trail.

 Dried up river bed.  Only runs with water after a big rain.

 These are young saguaro cactus that haven't developed arms yet.  This was on our third hike, I didn't write down the name.

 Fourth hike was down some sandy trails and around a rocky hill called the Bulldog.

 Saguaro Cactus usually grow up in a nurse plant to protect it until it gets big enough to stand on it's own.

 Interesting airplane contrails.

 Here's the Bulldog.

 Our fifth hike was out to a lake.  I'm ready to go.

 Ocotillo bush.

 Here's the lake.  I forgot the name.

 Our sixth hike was up through a saddle, around this mountain, and back down a different saddle.  I didn't write down the name of the hike.  We did also do a hike with Talitha and David, so this was really the seventh hike.

 Nice rocks.

 An older Saguaro Cactus.

 This is the terrain we were hiking through.  Arizona is not flat.

 Rocky formations.

 Miners needle off in the distance.  This was our eighth hike which our guide call the Meridian to Ironwood hike because we were lined up with those highways in the distance.

I love the hiking out here.  I think it's definitely my favorite activity.