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| Hiking | 7.50 Miles |
3,495 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.50 Miles | 4 Hrs | | 1.88 mph |
| 3,495 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | I was really craving a Supes fix today, but needed to stay closer to home, so I decided to head out to the McDowell Sonoran Preserve for my first hike there. I have done some climbing at Sven Slab in the northern part of the preserve, but haven't really been interested in hiking the trails near Scottsdale since I consider them city trails, and I am not interested in city trails. That is the same reason why I rarely hike Camelback or Piestewa even though I live within a few minutes of them both ... as far as I'm concerned, Camelback is for rock climbing and Piestewa is for driving by.
Anyhow, got out there intending to hike up towards Tom's Thumb but not all the way to the Thumb since I didn't feel like a 10+ miler today. My goal was the spring, because I love springs and I was interested to see this one so close to the city. Turns out the spring is awesome ... the rest of the hike eehhh, so-so.
The Gateway trailhead area is very nice and fancy-shmancy, befitting it's upscale location. The trails are well built and well marked, and today they were not too crowded. I went up Saguaro Trail, then left on Gateway to Wingate, to Tom's Thumb trail ... pretty steady elevation gain the whole way.
The scenery in front of me as I headed up was fine, but I just cannot really relax and get into a hike when I have the city in view and within earshot for most of the hike. I am just a hopeless wilderness junkie, I guess.
By far the coolest part was as I approached the spring, I could see and smell the greenery at almost the same time - the smell of water in the desert, there is nothing like it! The spring makes a nice little (very little) waterfall through some cattails and trickles across the trail. I pushed through the cattails and up a slippery rock to where the water actually comes out of the pipe - the bucket is still there in case you need to douse yourself. I was very pleased to find water gushing out of the pipe - well over a gallon a minute. I splashed some on my face and found it was warmer than I expected, then as is my custom with spring water I took a drink - several actually, since the water tasted so good and clean! Had lunch up there and hung out with the birds and insects for a while - heard several other hikers pass by, but they did not come up to the pipe.
All the typical critters were out today - saw cactus wrens, curve-billed thrashers, phainopepla, rock wrens up by the spring, verdin, doves, lots of LGB's, and plenty of quail ... the quail out there do not seem to be the exploding (out of the brush) type - all the groups I encountered just quietly scattered instead of creating a big ruckus. Also saw antelope ground squirrels, rabbits, and lizards. At the spring there were lots of bees and flies, one very fat and happy ladybug, and a tarantula hawk wasp, also some red wasp-looking things which I cannot identify.
It's safe to say that this place will never make my list of favorites, and I doubt if I will return very often, but I am still glad it's there and that it has been preserved. |
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Mountain Spring |
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| | | Tastes good, warmer than I expected. | | _____________________
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