Ultra-festive

I was riding out on the east side of Apache Junction when I heard a lawn-mower motor overhead. After a moment I spotted two ultralights heading north across the face of the Superstitions. By the time I fumbled my camera out and got it aimed, I only had time to point and shoot. Still, I think it came out okay, considering, and I have to think that the view from up there must be wonderful. 

Superstition Silhouette

I liked all the plants in this one... 

Goldfields

On my bike ride Saturday morning I went a little closer than I've been to this part of the Goldfield Mountains. This range runs east-west justto the north of Apache Junction, and they extend more or less from the Superstitions to the McDowell range. Usery Mountain is the anchors the western end (I think Red Mountain is separate from the range).

It looks to me like parts of this section are a continuation of the stripe that runs across Pass Mountain, but they're rather eroded and it's hard to tell. 

Arizona Sunset 2

Picacho Peak, about 35 miles northwest of Tucson. 1500' tall. Beautiful wildflowers in the spring. Good hiking.

"Even though bizarre-looking Picacho Peak looks much like a volcanic neck, it is actually the faulted, tilted and eroded remains of a sequence of lava flows, except for the summit, which contains a large block of Precambrian granite."

http://www.desertusa.com/azpicacho/azpicacho.html

Arizona Sunset 1

Heading toward Phoenix from Tucson. 

North Rim, part II

The North Rim of the Grand Canyon has several viewpoints and trails that are only accessible by 4-wheel-drive or on foot, and only one trail that goes to the bottom of the canyon. The South Rim has several trails that go "below the rim" and a much bigger selection of viewpoints and paved trails. It also has a ton more people and there's a big difference in the way the views feel. The features inside the canyon feel much closer on the north side and the views are more panoramic. Because the north side is higher, you can see across the plains to the San Francisco peaks near Flagstaff and Marble Canyon and the Vermillion and Echo Cliffs to the north and east.


Other than the lodge area, there are only two developed access points and a handful of turnouts accessible by road. The roads on the north side are much like the ones in the Ozarks, with only a simple two-lane, minimal shoulders, many twists and lots of turns along the ridgelines of the Kaibab Plateau. It's only about 30 miles of driving from the lodge to the east side points, but it's easy to spend a half-day just hitting the short trails.


These shots are from Roosevelt Point.

The first looks northeast toward the beginning of the canyon and the second looks southeast toward the confluence with the Little Colorado. The Little Colorado has a 1,000'-deep canyon of its own and would be worth at least a state park in most places.

We went south along the rim to Cape Royal and Angels Window, where you can actually walk out on top of the narrow fin of stone over the window. The view on the opposite wall of the canyon includes (if you zoom in far enough) the Desert Tower. It's right above the bend of the Colorado. I'm not sure how well that will do in this format, though.

This is one of the views from Cape Royal.

After visiting the south end, we went back north to Point Imperial. The view to the northeast shows Marble Canyon over a ridge.

Heading home we stopped to look out over the valley below. The black line is AZ-89A.

From the overlook we went back across the bridge over the Colorado and south along the Echo Cliffs again.

Traveling to the North Rim

This last weekend we traveled up from the Valley to the North Rim. We drove past the volcanoes around Flagstaff and across the canyon of the Little Colorado and then on up along the Echo Cliffs.

At the top end of the state AZ-89 reaches the vertex where the canyon of the Colorado River splits the north-south Echo Cliffs from the east-west Vermillion Cliffs. At that point, a few miles downstream from Lee's Ferry, the highway crosses the canyon on the Navajo Bridge. The bridge is a replacement for an older structure that's preserved as a foot bridge.



We walked out onto the bridge and checked out the view down to the river. From the bridge south and west there is a wide-open plain edged by the two cliffs and, on the west, the Kaibab Plateau.

From the bridge we went along the Vermillion Cliffs and up onto the Kaibab Plateau to Jacob Lake. Just before town we saw the edges of the fires that shut down the north rim in June. Jacob Lake is nearly 8,000' in elevation and it's quite a climb up the face of the plateau.

The road south from Jacob Lake goes through intervals of mountain curves and long open meadows. The forest on either side were burned for miles - about 10, I think, with a center section of maybe 4 or 5 miles really charred in the center of that - south of town.

We wandered the North Rim over two days, so the pictures from here on are going to be of different times and weather conditions.

It's 44 miles from the junction with AZ-89 to the North Rim Lodge. Along the way we saw turkeys and deer. The lodge gives a view into the Grand Canyon over the Bright Angel, Transept and Roaring Springs side canyons.

The red of the sunset lit up the canyon. I promised to post the shot I took, but it's pretty

fuzzy. Still, it does show how ruddy the canyon gets as the sun sets. The pointy one on the right is Angels Gate.

The first evening we got a shower sweeping in across the canyon that wet things down and made a wonderful sunset.

The lodge is very near the tip of a long penninsula, but not at the very end. To get to there you have to walk out another quarter mile on a narrow paved path. With a substantial dip and climb at 8,000' it's a pretty good bit of effort, at least for me. The trail is definitely not for those who are shakey about heights.

I'm having trouble with Blogger here so, assuming that I succeed in posting this, I'll pause here. There are other sites on the North Rim still to go and more on the homeward trail.

Glory