16 November 2016 Return to South Mountain

My conference ended with a few hours of daylight. The rest of the week was ours starting with hopefully time to reach a December 2000 cache and a puzzle Ali had solved. A second visit to South Mountain was as pleasant as the first with more climbing and trail adventures

The clear skies of Sunday had been replaced with the late week haze from the Phoenix traffic.

The 2000 cache was a super hide in a large rock formation. We spent a long time looking for the hide with no success. There is eventually that sinking feeling of being so close to a find with no success. We really wanted to find the December 2000 find. Ali and I climbed over all the rocks and crevices multiple times.

Lots of hiding places and spaces to crawl

Suddenly, the ammo can was found!

We made our way over to a solved, puzzle cache for our last find at South Mountain. Metal tin containers make reasonable cache containers in the desert while these would be short lived near our homes. We left a few volunteer tags around the desert during our Phoenix stay.

I never tired of seeing sunsets

14 November 2016 A Day in the Desert

We planned to spend the day in Tonto National Forest. We are slowly visiting a variety of the National Forests. This one is much different than my baseline of eastern wooded lands. Our first stop was along the trails in the lower Salt River area. We never reached the river, but it is visible in the distance near the center of the image below.

After a few cache finds, we made our way to Bulldog Canyon and the oldest geocache in Arizona. Saguaros are plentiful in the area and tower over most of the other vegetation.

Most of the desert hides are hides even I can spot.

Finding out Cholla will pierce the soles of waterproof hiking boots was painful in multiple ways.

We moved on to Usery Pass and were treated to a few new bird sightings including the black throated sparrow

and the phainopepla.

13 November 2016 South Mountain Park

South Mountain Park is the jewel of Phoenix and one of the largest municipal parks in the US. Ali planned this to be our stop of the day when we arrived early afternoon. We barely touched the 56 miles of trails, but it was a perfect, warm way to say hello to a few days in Arizona.

Cactus grow large here.

Ali poses with a very tall suguaro.

Park benches in the desert

Shadows came quickly in the canyon in November.

So did sunset

We were treated to the super moon on our walk back to parking.

12 November 2016 Cache Maintenance Run

We were flying the next day, and the dogs were already at dog camp. We took a walk in South Chagrin and did a little cache maintenance. The leaves were mostly gone, but the sky was blue and the trail was inviting.

5 November 2016 Cuyahoga Valley

We rarely visit Cuyahoga Valley. It was a complete surprise a number of years ago when the Recreation Area became a National Park. When i think of national parks, I think of awesome places with lifetime memories that make my heart race in anticipation as we approach the entrance. I think of places like Shenandoah, the Grand Canyon, Pinnacles, and all the other awe inspiring places in our country which can make me pause and gaze at the beauty. Cuyahoga Valley would have been a great state park or an amazing county park. As a piece of our National Park System, it stands as a monument to pork spending. Even so, we enjoyed a walk in the park with the dogs on this fall afternoon and our journey into the nearby Cleveland Metroparks Brecksville Reservation. It's hard to tell when the transition from National Park to County Park happens.

Thankfully, there is a national park visit in our near future and hopefully many more ahead...

30 October 2016 Roadside Hawk

We were driving home from Pennsylvania and spotted this hawk roadside in a tree. He seemed aware of us, but stayed long enough for an image.

29 October 2016 ASP Again

We are kind of stuck in a rut between ASP and SGL219 or the geocacher's version of Groundhog Day. They are both great places to walk and see wildlife so it's not a bad rut. Today's journey brought us to Allegany State Park for a fall day that promised rain at some time on the trail. We made our first visit to the Beehunter Trail and enjoyed a long, pleasant hike in the woods. Despite the threatening weather, there were many other people on the trail. We found the caches and watched a pileated woodpecker demolishing a tree. We were also able to enjoy the sights along a few other trails despite the rain.

We were surprised to see Herb Robert in bloom this late. Herb Robert is native to parts of the US but has earned classification as a weed in parts of the US, particularly the northwest since it has escaped from home gardens and can grow aggressively. The plant is rumored to have cancer prevention traits (with all these internet herbal cures, shouldn't we all be cured by now ;) ).