WILDHORSE TRAIL + - SAGUARO PARK

We did a new trail and off trail hike. Started on the usual main trail but wound our way to the Wildhorse trail which took us to a real remote feeling and isolated part of the park; it also took us to canyon areas and closer to the Tanque Verde Ridge.

After the main trail ends there is a well trodden and easy to follow use trail that we took over and through and around a canyon that got progressively narrower and rockier. We stopped at a bend in the wash in a large sandy/gravelly area for our lunch and nap. Loads and loads of pools; lots of them with stagnant water. and in the summer i can imagine swimming in several of them.

So Bill had planned a loop back and we were leisurely ambling to different trails and i think we ended up on the Bajada Wash or Vista trail. Stopped for our 3rd break and to soak up the sun and suddenly realized that we were a lot farther from the truck than we thought.

So the energy boosters got turned on. We never got to the trail we were headed for and as it got darker and darker, even though we weren't lost, we decided to go cross country. Bill's GPS showed us that we were really really close to our truck and we were! However, that destination was only reached by getting all scratched up from thorn bushes, acacia trees, mesquite branches and stumbling over rocks. We saw the canopy roof of the truck finally but still couldn't get to it cuz there was a barbed wire fence surrounding the parking area.

Quite an adventure that's for sure. The end of this hike reminded me how fast the desert can turn from a warm huggable blanket of benevolence to a chilly bone cold icy slap in the face.

BEV'S JAN. 2010 VISIT

click on the link below to enjoy.

https://plus.google.com/photos/104558674974334182523/albums/5425905797552658513

THE DOG IN THE WASH

About 3 weeks ago, i started seeing this dog on the river path or in the wash as i was walking in the morning. She's a shy dog or a fearful one and skitters away (can canines skitter?) immediately. After several days i started talking to this runner about the dog and he said its been living in the wash for about a month and its got a collar on but he's not been able to get close enough to catch it.

This dog has become the casual but constant talk of the group of us pre-dawn walkers. We'll nod hello as we pass and then whisper "see her?" One morning after a bitter cold and rainy and windy night (a foot of snow on Mt.Lemmon) the scuttlebutt of the river trail-ers was that the dog was probably dead (there are also coyotes that roam and stalk the river bed). And then lo and behold, there she is a couple of mornings later, looking healthier than i felt.!

Signs were put up at frequent locations with a picture of the dog exhorting any sighters to call IMMEDIATELY and 3 different cell phones were listed. This morning i came across a gal calling each of the 3 cell phone numbers with no one answering! and then at the end of my walk - there was the husband of a couple walking after the dog in the wash (without luck).

Since the dog has a collar, I assume the human owners placed it there and why aren't they missing their dog? Maybe the dog ran away from home because it was an abusive environment or the owner was a drug addict and cocaine dealer or maybe the dog got romantically involved with a neighbor dog who moved away and she got so heartsick she thought she'd commit suicide by starving and living outdoors in the dry Rillito River.

What does she eat?

and maybe the dog loves living in the wash. she can poop wherever she wants, has no set dinner hour, can bark at the sight of the full moon, doesn't have to be talked down to in doggie cutesy squeaks and doesn't have to be manhandled and prodded by the grandkids.

If the dog gets caught, she'll probably end up in a cage at the Humane Society; living in a steel edged space that is barely bigger than her body; crammed into a building with tens and tens of other canines and some of them being from the wrong side of the street (wash?) No wonder she stays in the wash.