McDowell Mountain Regional Park, Fountain Hills, AZ

Days 50 – 56, Monday to Sunday, March 5 – March 11, McDowell Mountain Regional Park, Rio Verde, AZ

When we left Catalina on Monday, we stopped at Casa Grande to see the ruins there, and we listened to a great ranger talk that told us about the history of the people who built this huge edifice of caliche and the town and extensive canal system that surrounded it. The building predicted astronomical events such as solstices and equinoxes, as well as the lunar standstill that occurs every 18.6 years.

Knowledgeable and enthusiastic ranger talk.

Jan by the building.  There is a pair of Great Horned Owls nesting here.

I was still coughing a lot all week, and trying to rest.  We like the campsites here out in the desert, and Jan and Duane could see the fountain at Fountain Hills from their spot!  Jim did a lot of mountain biking on the trails here, one day biking a (slightly unplanned) 30 miles!  One day he met his friends Dave and Jim to mountain bike from the Brown Ranch Trailhead in the McDowell Sonoran Reserve.  I went on a bike ride with Jan on the roads in the park on Thursday. On Friday I was feeling better, walked the 3-mile North Trail nature loop, reinforcing my knowledge of the names of the plants and trees here.  I saw a Harris Hawk on top of a saguaro.  On Sunday I walked a 4-mile loop from the RV, down the Granite Trail to the Pemberton Trail, up to the old Pemberton ranch, then back down to the Visitor Center and up the road to our RV.

Horses as well as hikers and mountain bikers on these trails!

Bikers hoping not to unbalance the rock.

Better not to stand below this!

Jim and Dave, those bare legs are scary in the desert!

Big Saguaro and Big Guy.

North Trail with the Four Peaks in the distance.

Desert vista

Packrat nest on the North Trail.

This deserves some thought!

The dry winter means the wildflowers are not blooming here as we have seen them in the past.  There are lots of Curve-Billed Thrashers and Cactus Wrens, but not many Phainopepla.   That has been true this entire trip.   We got a hummingbird feeder that is stuck on the dining table window, and I was clearly able to identify a Golden-Fronted Woodpecker, a Texas bird that is not common in this area! 

Wednesday, we drove to Saguaro Lake and kayaked.  Last year Jim got a great picture of an eagle here!  We kayaked up to the top of Willow Creek Canyon, a narrow gorge, and beached the kayaks and walked up the canyon a bit.  We saw a Canyon Wren close up, as it walked upside down on the wall of the canyon hunting insects.  As so often happens, we battled a bit of a headwind on the way back!

Saguaro Lake

We paddled up Willow Creek, beached our kayaks and walked up the canyon.

Tuesday night we went down to Fountain Hills to have dinner at the All-American Brewpub, with a view of the fountain.  Friday night Dave and Ellie and Jim and his friend Teresa joined us for dinner.  We barbecued steaks, I made stir-fried veggies and rice, Jan and Dwayne provided appetizers, and Ellie and Dave brought brownies and ice cream for dessert.  A lovely evening!  The weather has warmed up a bit, so we were comfortable sitting outside.