Nature Trail Madera Canyon

Today the men are at a Men's retreat at church, so we ladies decided to hike. We went to the top of the nature trail at Madera Canyon and walked downhill. It was beautiful. Our hiking group had hiked uphill once from the very bottom and it was nice, but going downhill helped us see even more beauty! The stream was running and that was a thrill to hear the water. We also saw 3 male turkeys strutting around. I just looked it up on the Internet and their mating season is supposed to be March and April. Well, these boys are starting early! It was funny to see - their feathers up and pretty and them just marching around in a group. Apparently, they are more successful when grouped like that. Unfortunately,my camera's batteries died by then and my spare batteries were in Jim's hiking gear. Ya - poor excuse, but we usually hike together. Anyway, enjoy the pictures. This will probably be the destination for our April 10th hike. We ladies were blessed by the time together and the experience. We did stop hiking at Madera Picnic grove and Karen hitched a ride back to the car. It was a wonderful and blessed day!

We were surprised to have to cross over water! Was fun and lovely to listen to and enjoy.

These next 2 pictures show the snow covered Catalinas in the distance and part of our Green Valley.

Looks like some love birds were drawing in the sand! Then, God drawing in a tree and more beautiful rock formations!

Beautiful granite boulders, sycamore, various oak and alligator juniper trees line the creek.

Yes, we got our boots wet as we crossed over!

Check out this big tree with a hole you can see through!

Quantrell Mine Trail Hike

I know it is hard to read, but the 3rd line down says "Very Steep Trail". We laughed at that one. Since it doesn't show Quantrell Trail, we went on the road to the left of this sign. Another time, we will try this trail.

Beautiful rock colors and trees - white oak!

Wow - what a trail! Have we really walked this far!!!! Didn't seem that long!

Aren't we cute? This was about 1/2 way up to the top. We decided they should have a picnic table and outhouse with water here.

Yes, we found snow and I made a snowball to throw at Jim. Of course, I missed! We are actually hiking to the east of Elephand Head. We could see Pinion Pine trees in it - big surprise. We never noticed them from below.

After hiking up about 1000' to 5880 elevation, we saw several cell phone towers. After climbing on a large rock, we discovered a rainbow cactus! What a huge blessing and oddity! This type of cactus grows in very few locations. It is usually found at lower elevations, but since it is so protected here, it is, obviously, doing quite well. We did reach the end of this trail and we were higher that Elephant Head! We could see the snow on the Catalinas in Tucson. It was an amazing hike and well worth taking! We are still not sure that we were on the actual Quantrell Mine trail, but this wide road was easy to hike. The only challenge was the elevation. However, since there were many switch backs, it really wasn't too bad. We took our time and stopped as needed and the total time for the hike was about 2 1/2 hours.