Weekend Photos: Where the Rains Aren't
This is an almost-real-time photo post--these pictures are cell-phone photos (easiest to handle away from my home computer) of a hike on Thursday in Saguero National Park East. I fled down here a week ago to get some light and reset my winter brain. Predictably, while Seattle has been awash in rain, the desert SW has been horribly dry (a part of the reason for the LA fires). I noticed the effects of that drought all around on my hike. I started from the Douglas Springs trailhead on the far fringes of Tucson, and hiked a loop incorporating the Douglas Springs trail, the Three Tanks trail, and the Garwood trail for a 6.25-mile hike with a modest 1100' of climbing and descending. Yes, Petey Possum came along! The hike started with easy walking along the valley floor before beginning a stiff climb up and around a hill. This is the Sonoran Desert, and the iconic plant of the Sonoran (at least, the northern part) is the saguaro--outlined against the horizon. I hadn't been walking lon...