Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

I'm catching up on photo edits again, and have some shots from some of the hikes I did around Tucson last month. It's such a contrast from Seattle's winter landscape! The next afternoon after arriving I went for a short hike with a friend up the very popular Sabino Canyon. We were so busy talking and catching up that I pretty much forgot to shoot photos, but did capture this, one of the most graphic warning signs I've seen (I kind of collect interesting signs). "If you aren't careful you will ruin your bike and fly off the bridge to land on the rocks below and die." A day or so later I went to the local "A Mountain" (not just a mountain, but the one with the big white A for the University of Arizona) for a bit of trail-running (heavily mixed with walking). That offered some good views of the city. Tucson, with Saguaros. People below me are sitting on the big A. A third hike was out by the Sonoran Desert Museum, in the National Park's West Uni...

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...

Last weekend I shared photos from the hike in to Skoki Lodge and one of our outings from that base. Today we'll finish off my fall trip to the Canadian Rockies with some amazing peak-top views and the rather wintery hike out. On our second full day at the lodge, the weather was iffy at best, and only two of the three of us were crazy enough to head out for our planned hike up Skoki Mountain. At about two and a half miles round trip and a 1600' climb, it's not a huge undertaking, though a bit steep (you can make it even steeper by taking the "scree trail" which goes pretty much right up the side of the mountain, but we took the longer route).  We lounged around for a bit after breakfast, but there appeared to be some clearing around 9:45, so Tom and I headed up through the trees. About the time we hit treeline, the snow resumed. Still, visibility wasn't zero, and Tom's weather app said we'd get clearing about eleven, so on we went. If you look closely...