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| Hiking | 7.00 Miles |
2,115 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.00 Miles | 7 Hrs | | 1.00 mph |
| 2,115 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | I'll subtitle this one: Orchid Hunt, 2012. After reading an article in the Az Daily Sun about 5 different orchids found on the Peaks, I was ready to hit the trail. I didn't even know that there were orchids up high in the mountains, and I didn't know that spotted coral root and calypso were orchids! It was a "duh" moment for me.
I headed up Abineau not at a record pace, but slowly scanning the shadowy, moist areas for the plants. I quickly found spotted coral root--have seen it many times but didn't every take the time to look at the tiny flowers. It is so tiny, but definitely an orchid. After pictures, I continued up the trail searching for calypso. I have never seen this one before, but the newspaper article said it was here, so I kept looking. Finally I was lucky enough to find one--just one on the whole hike. Like before, I had to lay on the ground in order to get a good picture.
It was such a beautiful day, and my first day of summer break, so I decided to do the loop. The number of wildflowers was amAZing, and Tibber-mode slowed me down, but I really enjoyed the trail. It reminded me of hiking in my home state of Idaho. The trail is fairly steep in places and a little slick--it made me realize how much conditioning I've lost over the winter. There were several places where downed trees lay on the trails and where the more rotted trees have been torn up. I know that this is black bear habitat, but I didn't see any today.
Butterflies were chasing each other up and down the Abineau--tiger swallowtails, mourning cloak, blues, yellows and skipperlings. They didn't light for long and were hard to photograph. It was quite fun walking among all of them.
Just as I hit the junction with the Waterline road, my son called--he'd been tracking my progress on Spot and was checking up on me. I reassured him that all was well and I was really enjoying myself. A few hundred yards down the Waterline I flushed a grouse--first time I've seen one on the Peaks. The picture turned out horrible since the bird flew into a tree that was in the shade. I'm fairly certain it is a ruffed grouse. I looked around for the nest but couldn't find it, so I moved on, not wanting to scare the bird away from the nest for too long.
The walk down the Bear Jaw is more beautiful than the Kachina Trail and I'll be sure to be here in the fall. The aspen groves are very thick and very healthy.
I found several plants that I couldn't name. I needed to pull out the reference books to identify them. I'm a little disappointed that I was too early for the Parry's primrose, but it should be blooming soon. I think I'll be back in a couple weeks to do it again. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
