Friday, January 6, 2015 – The Ohio Buckeye victory earned us a box of delicious Oregon chocolates from fellow blogger, Russ. Russ and Donna live in Eugene, Oregon, and are huge Oregon Duck fans. Thanks Russ. The candy was awesome!
Oregon Wine Truffles…Yummmmmy!
Had to burn some calories so we could enjoy those chocolates, so we headed out on a hike to Madera Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains in the Coronado National Forest.
Madera Canyon is known for its exceptional and varied hiking trails. Our campground is just east of the Santa Rita Mountains. We can easily see them from our campground, but wouldn't you know, we have to drive about 45 minutes to the north side of the mountain to enter the National Forest. So close but yet so far!
We chose the Nature Trail to begin our hike. The trail begins at the Santa Rita Lodge (which we forgot to check-out) and makes its way along Madera Creek and into Mount Wrightson foothills for about three miles one way. This is a well-maintained trail with about a 1000' elevation gain. There are very nice views of Madera Canyon and the Santa Rita Mountains.
The trail takes on many different looks from crossing the Madera Creek to gravel to large rocks.
At the beginning of the hike, we followed the Madera Creek for about half mile.
At the end of the Nature Trail there stood Mt. Wrightson with some snow showing.
After completing the trail we had to walk the road for about one mile to reach the Bog Springs Trail. This is a short trail of a couple miles that would lead us back to the parking lot and our truck. This trail was not well marked, and we wondered around quite a bit searching for the Bog Springs Campground which was our destination. This trail had only about a 600' gain in elevation but was pretty rocky in places. We did enjoy some bird watching just before reaching the campground.
See the woodpecker?
The views were lovely.
Marsha used to enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles. She swears she did one that looks like a picture she took.
We were very pleased with today's hikes. The trails were very nice, the weather was super, and we got a fairly nice workout. Marsha received a Fitbit from the girls for Christmas. It reported she traveled over 5 miles and 12,735 steps. Her busiest time was between 12:30 and 12:45, when she walked 1359 steps. We recommend Madera Canyon in Green Valley, AZ, for our hiking friends!
Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!
