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| Hiking | 10.59 Miles |
2,353 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.59 Miles | 5 Hrs 11 Mns | | 2.09 mph |
| 2,353 ft AEG | 7 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | The McDowell park complex northeast of Phoenix, from my visit, offers an invigorating, pleasant array of hikes and trails. For this morning, I started at the dirt parking lot off 104th Street, and used Bell and Wingate Pass Trails for a ten mile loop.
These trails ascend and descend gradually, never terribly taxing, though a good bit rock and pebble laced underfoot. The park resides in the high desert, so a constant cover of vegetation spreads throughout, but rarely dense. Saguaro cactus stand tall, in all directions, but fairly spread out. A low grass fills in between the taller shrubs and cactus plants.
My somewhat observant eye noticed that the steeper slopes in McDowell support only a sparser density of vegetation. I am not well traveled, but have observed the vegetation in the Grand Canyon and in Sedona. Those two locations feature mainly sandstone and limestone rock, and my sense is that vegetation, including stout desert pines, can latch into niches in steep slopes in those locations. The harder granite rock on the steep slopes along my hike in McDowell did not seem to allow that as much.
Shade covered the trail very intermittently, and the Phoenix sun beat down on the day of my hike with few blocking clouds. But the temperatures were noticeably below normal, and a cooling breeze did kick up. |
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