MORE FROM USERY MOUNTAIN

Sunday, March 5 – We took another hike this morning in Usery Mountain Regional Park near Phoenix. We combined several trails to make a little over a 4-mile hike. Moon Rock was part of the hike and is an excellent hike with ups and downs. Great for mountain biking.

We can’t get over how green the desert is.

Maybe this is where Moon Rock trail got its name.

We've sure enjoyed this park, and the many hiking opportunities. We looked into extending our stay here but there are no vacancies.

Last night we attended a movie at the Nature Center entitled “Desert Dreams: Celebrating Five Seasons in the Sonoran Desert.” It was about life in the desert during the four seasons. We think the five comes from adding the rainy season to the four regular seasons.  It had no spoken lines, only the sounds of nature in the desert. Lasted about an hour and was pretty enjoyable. Well attended too – a full house.

Jan, Bill and Jan RVing in the USA, suggested that we check with the Ranger what the big Phoenix sign on the side of the mountain means. Marsha did just that. Here is what she found out.

A former WWII pilot was convinced some sort of directional aid was needed to help pilots find Phoenix. In the 1950s, the Air Explorers Boy Scouts cleared away brush and arranged rocks to spell “PHOENIX” on the southern slopes of one of the peaks in the Usery Mountains. They painted the rocks white, and it was fronted by a large white arrow pointing to the airport, located almost thirty miles away. Each letter is about 100 feet high and 12 feet wide.  The tip of the arrow to the end of the word, the sign is 1,00 feet across— that’s about the size of the Eiffel Tower. Now you know the rest of the story!

One last photo from Marsha. On her bucket list to get a photo of a javelin, Gambel’s quail, coyote and the Baseball Hall of Fame. Well, guess what. She got one of the four and is she thrilled. Doesn’t take much to make her happy.

Gambel’s quail.

This is our last day in the mountains north of Phoenix. Tomorrow we move down to Apache Junction. We will miss Usery Mountains but put it on the list of places we might want to return to again.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

SIGHTS AT USERY MOUNTAIN REGIONAL PARK

Saturday, March 4 – Sunday is our last day at Usery Mountain Regional Park. We have loved every minute of our visit. One activity Marsha loves to do is take photos of the saguaro. They all seem to have their own personality.

This one makes a great house for many of the birds.

Beautiful veins.

After a very long life, this is all that is left.

We saw many hummingbird feeders out, so we decided to put ours up. We haven’t seen one hummingbird, but we attracted this beauty.

We took a sightseeing drive around the park. We had no idea that there are two playgrounds and an outdoor gym.

Kids’ playground.

The arms on this mountain lion are slides.

There are 12 different machines in the outdoor gym.

Phainopepla or “The Black Cardinal”

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

HIKING IN USERY MOUNTAINS

Friday, March 3 - We sure are enjoying our stay at Usery Mountain Regional Park just outside of Phoenix, AZ. There are numerous trails throughout the park. Today we choose the Blevins Trail for an enjoyable hike. The complete loop is approximately 3.25 miles of relatively flat desert hiking. It is one of the most popular trails in the park so an early start is recommended to beat the crowds.

We hiked the trail in a clockwise direction and might consider a counterclockwise if we would hike it again. The direction we took involved a gradual uphill hike for the entire last mile on the trail. The elevation change was minor, but we still did some huffing and puffing during that last uphill stretch.

We crossed several washes.

There are many opportunities to connect with intersecting trails if one wishes to lengthen their hike. All the trails are well marked, and a map is available at the gatehouse. Many of these trails are great for mountain bike riding as well.

The desert is slowly coming alive with the beauty of Spring. Unfortunately, we will miss the big show.

We enjoyed this morning's hike and plan additional hikes in the future, so check back and see what we find.

Bella just loves the desert. We have been taking her on her daily walk. Who ever thought a cat would love walking the desert floor. Oh by the way…she must always be the leader…lol.

The desert sky never fails to amaze us.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

 

USERY MOUNTAIN REGIONAL PARK….AWESOME!

Wednesday, March 1 – All systems were GO for our departure from Sedona this morning. The truck seemed to operate very smoothly after our recent repair. Surprising the number of friends that informed us that they had their vehicles serviced or repaired at that same dealer. Must be those Sedona vortex causing problems.... :-)

It was a smooth trip down the mountains to Phoenix. Pretty much down hill the entire way.

We said our good byes to the snow-capped mountains.

We are at Usery Mountain Regional Park in Maricopa County.

We have a beautiful site, #32, with 50 amp electric and water. There is a dump station available which we used on our way into the park. We had no where to dump in Sedona so we brought our…“stuff” with us. The sites are gravel and very widely spaced. Very private with grills, picnic tables and huge backyards. The streets are paved and wide enough to make backing the 5^th wheel into our site relatively easy.

Looking right.

Looking left.

We are here to mostly relax and do a little hiking. There are an abundance of hiking trails in the area. We intend to give them some use. We also hope to do some easy mountain bike riding too!

Marsha had a wonderful time watching the sunset and took numerous pictures. She loves the quite and peaceful environment and so does Bella. Neither one of them wanted to come inside tonight. Guess we'll have to get some firewood and have a campfire in the near future.

Do you see the plane on the right side of the photo?

The moon and Venus.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

MOTHER NATURE’S GYM

Wednesday, March 5 – We skipped our workout at Planet Fitness this morning and took on Mother Nature's Gym instead. We were in the South Mountains just outside Phoenix, Arizona, to hike the Holbert Trail. Man, what a great hike!

Even though we were on the trail early, we were surprised by the number of hikers enjoying this mountain. It's unusual for us to see many other hikers, but today there were numerous other hikers climbing the trail. Many were young adults with ear buds in their ears drowning out most everything. Some, of course, were running up the trail, many had no water, and nearly all had no idea about trail etiquette. We sound too much like our parents when we state the condition of this young generation... Ha Ha!

Back to the trail.....It begins with a very easy segment through some large rocks. If you look carefully there are numerous petroglyphs by the Hohokam people on many of the higher rocks. We discovered that the first .68 mile is not counted on the trail map when figuring length of trail.

Once we reached the actual beginning of the trail, it becomes a pretty steady climb and almost a constant rock scramble.

Beautiful rock formations.

The trail is easy to follow and very well marked. We climbed on one side of the canyon then crossed over and continued climbing through a series of switchbacks on the other wall of the canyon. It's not overwhelmingly steep but a very nice trail and a good workout.

See Paul waaaay over there.

Part of our trail.

The trail ends at the top of the mountain where it meets the National Trail which connects to the Box Canyon Loop trail to return to the original trailhead.

That loop is very long, over 14 miles, so we choose instead to climb the short, steep trail up to Dobbins Lookout to the observatory at the top of the mountain.

A very steep, rocky climb but well worth it.

Weren't we surprised to find a parking lot with many cars and people at the mountain top. Actually, we were aware you could drive up to the observation point but forgot all about it during our hike. That answers our query where people were coming from hiking down the mountain when they never passed us by. Evidently, they were dropped off at top and were hiking down. This was reinforced by the fact only one other car was in the trailhead parking lot when we started and only four when we finished.

The Lookout was named after James C. Dobbins, the chairman of the Phoenix Planning Commission who spearheaded the efforts to purchase the land. It is the highest viewing point accessible to visitors by trail at almost 2,330 feet.

This is a great hike we really enjoyed and recommend to others. We covered 7.28 miles with an elevation gain of 1071 feet. It took us 3.25 hours, not counting time spent at the top and time spent enjoying some lunch, before heading back down the mountain.

Brunch with a view.

We've hiked several mountain ranges around Phoenix (Superstition Mountains, Usery Mountains, Estrella  Mountains, and McDowell Mountains) in two visits to Phoenix and can now add South Mountains to the list. Be sure to checkout this area when in or around Phoenix. We think you'll enjoy your hike.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!