The Devil's Hall

Before we departed Guadalupe Mountains National Park after 3 nights of camping, we decided one more hike.  We elected to head west from campground up the canyon below Guadalupe Peak to the "Devil's Hall", supposedly a limestone slot canyon.  Really?  Let's go see..  All photos are with iPhone.

Sunrise over campground

 Where these names are derived is baffling to me.  In Death Valley there is "Devil's Golf Course".  Maybe the Devil comes to his hall here to lick his wounds after shooting 20 over par like the rest of us.

Yucca Flower

 We stop and look at this interesting yucca plant flower blooming  BIG

Yucca Flower again

 Pretty open in bottom of canyon.  It gets narrower and narrower

Up the canyon we go

 One mile into the hike we are not hiking up the river bed for next 1.1 miles.  

River Bed 

 Lots of bouldering here.  Glad we brought our hiking poles.  Saw lots of people on trail.  few with poles.  We will be sore but not as sore as they will be.

interesting flower growing out of river rock

 Looking up at peaks above.  We are hiking at roughly 5900 ft elevation up to 6700 ft

North Canyon Wall

 Now you don't see trees like this very often.

Alligator Juniper in perfect gymnast split position

 We keep walking.  Cairns were set up to note the path through the river bed. Giant boulders had to be gone around.

More river Bed

 Lots of these lizards and butterflies.  A few birds

Cute lizard.  we saw many

 We turn back 180 degrees up the canyon and think we are at our destination when we see this cool limestone wall.

Wow.  Cool limestone wall here.

 We decide to keep going.  Not sure how much further trail goes.  Let's find out.

Still going

WOW.  The Devil's Hall.  Limestone Slot Canyon.

Devil's Hall

 At the other end of canyon is this.  Whew.  Now we can say we hike to the end of the trail.

End of Trail

 Looking back we see the canyon again.

looking back on Devil's Hall

 We enjoy the moment,  look at the time and decide to head back down.  We made good time, about half of the trip up.  Tired and satisfied we are ready to begin our northern migration

Returning to campground below

So we end our Texas experience and head towards points north.  Stay tuned

Birthday Hike in the Superstitions

Today is my birthday.  Woo Hoo.  Not being a big celebrator but knowing that sometimes one has to allow others to celebrate your birthday (wise advice from Hunter Black years ago), I consented to a birthday hike up in the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix but conveniently located just above our campsite at Lost Dutchman Mine State Park.

looking up at Superstitions and flatiron from our campsite

We had hike most of the other trails in the area over past week, none of which were particularly hard but they got us in shape.  Today we elected to head up the Siphon Draw trail which ultimately takes you up to the top of Flatiron peak. 2400 ft elevation.



the first section of hike was 2 miles with 1000 ft elevation gain to the basin.  then another mile straight up 1800 more feet.  whew.  We trudged up the draw mid morning passing some early birds who were already coming down while allowing many others to pass us as we were the old farts on the trail.  Didn't really see anyone older than we are. (almost medicare eligible).

at the bottom of the draw.  you can see Flatiron in far distance

The upper reaches of draw opens up into a basin of slick rock, our original destination.  We rested a while and drank water.  We had our hiking poles but did not bring lunch so we had not planned to try the final mile to the Flatiron.  

Still in Basin here

looking out from where we stopped for water

However we did decide to try going a little farther so we headed up the basin slick rock to find a chute of scree.  Hmm.  not very fun here.  Young kids scrambled up and down it.  Some fast some cautiously.  I looked to my left and saw a trail which i followed. OK, this looks possible.  Keep camera in pocket as you need to keep your balance here.

Turns out it circumvents most of the chute so I called back to Sraddha who followed me up a couple hundred feet more. total of perhaps 350 elevation beyond our original goal  Pretty soon we were up at the top of the chute looking out into the valley and campground below.  

THis is far enough.  We went past our original goal but not too far to feel overdoing it.  Bodies take longer to recover.  The path down was treacherous, however we had our hiking poles which saved us several times from slipping and falling.  We did it.  Feeling more confident in our conditioning and abilities we continued down to bottom satisfied of our day.

We stopped here.  good hike for old farts.  We were the oldest on the trail

Pano of where we stopped

Celebrated with some Buttermilk Pie.  (actually the day before but who is counting?)

buttermilk pie

Location:E Mining Camp St,Apache Junction,United States

High country hike - Greenhouse Trail

the other day we decided to hike to higher elevations.  Our Sunny Flat campground in Cave Creek Canyon is 5180 ft.  we drove up this jeep trail west of campground about 4 miles to 6500 ft.  We wanted to see Winn Falls which drops 400 ft.   Here are some iPhone shots.
Thought we could reach base of falls on this GreenHouse trail.

Started out quite pleasant through forest glens into the Chiricahua Wilderness.
Across streams


And up, up, up, more up!  Turns out a whole bunch of switchbacks through the 2011 burn.  However we finally made it to the crest and saw this view which was worth the hike.

We sat in the shade eating out nuts and fruits.  I drank from my "sippee cup"

We finally saw the falls.  Turns out we saw it from above not at the base.  Still beautiful.  Falls 400 feet!


- blessings from the road

Chiricahua National Monument

We drive on a dirt road over a 7600 ft mountain pass from our campground to this area.


15 million years ago a volcano blew similar to Mt St Helen's, spreading deep layers of ash which welded and fused together in varying degrees of hardness.


The ages eroded and weathered the rocks to leave these incredible hoodoo like formations.


We hiked a 4 mile trail through an area called Echo canyon and marveled at the amazing shapes.


This area is in Apache country. I could just imagine Cochise and Geronimo riding through here.


- blessings from the road

Location:Chiricahua National Monument, Arizona

Birding at lower elevations

Today was Sraddha's birthday.  We had planned a reprise of last year's hike through the oak savanna to Fairy Falls near Spenceville, but my sprained ankle prevented us from hiking very far so we strolled up the road about a mile and back then drove down to Graylodge to see if we could spot the Owl's nest.  Success in this matter.  

Click on any of the photos to enlarge and see them better.

About half mile up the trail/road we spotted a pair of Western Bluebirds building a nest in an oak tree.

Western Blue Bird poking out of its nest

A few minutes later, when both bluebirds were out scavenging nest material, a woodpecker arrived with his lunch. 

Acorn Woodpecker with snack

"Hmm.  Nest huh?  This is one which I or my ancestors built.  So I am taking over!" he says.

Bluebird and woodpecker

"Now what do I do?" says the bluebird with nest material in its mouth.  "tough beans" says the woodie.  We didn't stay long enough to see the resolution.

I had hoped to see Lewis's woodpecker up where the road turns into a cow path.  That is where I saw them last year.  Nope.  not there and ankle hurting (remember I sprained it in Zion park a while back).

So we walked back down to the car.  Did I mention it was 90+ degrees out?  I was dragging when we arrived at trailhead.  Hauled the big lens, tripod and camera (30 lbs) on shoulder. (Memo to Kent: find a better way of carrying this gear next time).

We cooled off the car, re-hydrated and drove back down the road.  Finally spotted a Lewis's woodpecker in a tree.  Not the best light but he was still cute.

Lewis's Woodpecker

We headed down into the valley to Graylodge, a wonderful wildlife refuge north of Sierra Buttes to see if we could spot the Owl's nest.  Sraddha had been there last week and knew where it was.  Sure enough we saw it had at least one "Owlet" in it.  This is a little Great Horned Owl which hasn't yet learned to fly and was patiently waiting its parents for feeding.  It was huge but when we trained the scope and camera on it we could see its baby downy-like feathers.

Owlet with downy feathers in its nest high in an oak tree.

After viewing the "Owlet", we walked back to the car, pulled out our folding chairs and picnic dinner in the shade and ate.  We kept our scope and camera out and I got photos of Bullock's Orioles feeding on the grasses across the road.  Most of the photos were not very good due to interference with the reeds, weeds and grasses but I did get this photo.

Bullock's Oriole

Also saw a Kildeer sitting in the shade on the road and couldn't pass up the photo.

Kildeer

All in all, a lot of fun seeing all these interesting birds and celebrating her birthday.

Boquillas Canyon bike and hike

At the very southeast corner where the Rio Grande River exits Big Bend National Park, lies Boquillas Canyon.  As with the southwest corner of Santa Elena Canyon, these cliffs rise high to 1400 feet and the Sierra del Carmen mountains rise up on the Mexico side of the river to about 7000+ feet.

The weather was mild so we decided to bike the 6 miles over to the canyon trail then hike the 1.5 miles up the canyon.

We started late in the day and were the last ones on the trail, meeting many hikers on their way out.    We noticed several donation jars for the singers across the river (in Mexico) but they had the day off, so we had the canyon all alone. talk about quiet. I shot this pic with the iphone camera

Sraddha in Boquillas Canyon Bliss

En route we had noticed this little exhibit about a past pre WW1 tramway that ran 7 miles from Mexico, across the river up north to a spot where the ore from the Mexican mines were then loaded into trucks and carts and then transported by truck or cart another 60 miles to the Southern Pacific railhead.

7 mile long Aerial Tramway over the Rio Grande? Woah!

I sat in one of the ore cars used in the tramway to give you a perspective of the size.  Ore probably weighed more.

Me sitting in Ore Car

Not many birds though. We then faced the 6 mile bike ride back to campground over several little hills but we made it before dusk. Really fun day.