Empire 5, Gardner Canyon, AZ Trail south

 Our friends left this morning, headed to NM.  So then we went on a hike (n9o kidding!) back up Gardner Canyon to the AZ Trail and went south.  A few days ago we went north from the same trailhead.  We had done it before, sometime.  It’s tracked n Carlene’s map but not mine.  But neither of us remembered it so it’s like a new trail!  We remembered a few little parts of it but only maybe 10%.  Great trail.  This side went by a stream, so Skye was delighted.  Then up a bit and followed a contour for a couple miles to another creek.  Again, a happy dog.  Lunch beside the creek was nice.  The map and Carlene’s track showed us going from there down a forest road to where we had parked for a different hike.  But the trail went across that road and up into the forest.  We followed for just over a mile to a small saddle.  By then we were over 3 miles from the truck at 2 PM, it was time to head back.  We had a guess where the trail would go to lion back onto the mapped trail but no time to explore that any farther.  The AZT runs the length  of Arizona for 900 miles.  Of course Skye hit every water spot again on the way back.  She got home still wet and with her coat full of forest debris.  All the brush out here has some form of thorny means of attaching to hair.

Back out on the highway we had two priorities, the ice cream shop and store.  Ice cream first, of course! The shop in Sonoita is excellent and under new ownership.  We had to be sure the new owners we keeping up the high quality we discovered last year.  They are!  Two milkshakes later we were stuffed.  Carlene got her bananas too.

Back at camp we cleaned up Skye as much as she would allow and then went to visit the neighbors.  Mike and Becky are the retired NY farmers.  They had ridden the motorcycles to Bisbee today.  In their super C camper they carry 3 motorcycles and 2 bicycles.  The camper has a lift gate on the back to get all this in and out.  Correction, one moto rides in the bed of the pick up truck.

Three Vt campers

This was the tunnel described above

The Soapbox Yucca, whole and young on the left, dead and falling apart on the right.

Lunch dip

A small young Cholla

Tonight’s sunset spread out across the whole sky

Empire 4, visiting old friends

 This was visiting day.  A nice sunny semi-warm day to go to Hereford AZ to some long lost cowboy friends.  Good Guy & Miss Lainey.  And a bonus to see Deadly Doc who is also living here,  I came across Elaine on FB a couple weeks ago on Wichita Wendy’s page and we set up today to get us all together.  They’ve been out here for 13 years, and Doc for a few years.  

We met up at their house about 10, talked for a long time, had lunch and then Elaine and we went for a hike in Miller Creek Canyon.  Skye had a blast in the creek!

Back at camp 2 friends from Richmond, Stevie and Jayne, and 2 friends of theirs from Barre Town were camped beside us.  We’ve been trying  to get together with them too.  It just happened to occur on the same day!  They have been camping at a state park about 25 miles SW.  We had a good happy hour with them until the sunset made it a bit too cool outdoors and we all retreated to our campers.

Miller Peak

We also saw and heard this Cooper’s Hawk

Empire 3

 It was a cool and partly rainy day. We sat in the camper doing stuff until lunch.  After that we went for a 3 mile walk up the road behind camp.  We have gone out there many times.  It has good views and sometimes some Interesting birds.  Occasionally more wildlife, once even a herd of antelope.  But today was pretty basic. The only form of wildlife was some bones that Skye found   Two backbone sections and a skull   

Then Carlene watched some videos.  I started collecting info for the taxes.  Now I have most of what I’ll need.  

The dog bone of the day

INaturalist suggests that this may be a badger skull

I left the skull in a tree

The dark clouds are moving away from us

This is upwind, a bit more friendly skies

Downwind, but we still turned around 

More Thursday photos

 These are the photos I couldn’t post last night. I didn’t really figure out what the issue was   Logged out and back in but that wasn’t enough  I then closed a lot of tabs   That worked   But I don’t k ow which was causing the problem   

Tuber Anamone

Just a bit of sunset last night

Empire 2, Gardner Ranch & the Arizona Trail

 The chance of rain tomorrow meant we got going this morning to do a hike on the Arizona Trail.  Well, we didn’t really know what we were going to do when we left camp.  We wanted to go up the Gardner Canyon Road where there are several trails.  When we got up there we chose the AZ Trail northbound.  We did some of that trail 2 years ago but didn’t go more than a couple miles.  Today when we stopped for lunch and checked the map we realized we had the time & energy to go to Kentucky Camp.  We had been at KY Camp 3 years ago and did a short hike there, so this would connect to that.  

We met 3 people on the trail today.  One was a trail steward south of here who had gone to KY Camp out of curiosity.  She had heard of a trail relocation and had gone to look for it, but didn’t find it.  The next couple had gone to Greaterville, a 12 mile round trip.  And it wasn’t noon yet.

It was a very nice stretch of trail with some good uphill to start then leveling off for long portions a couple of times.  Once at KY Camp we saw the caretaker and recognized him from our last visit.  Also met his brother who is working with him.  Their father started care taking there 20 years ago and the first brother started 10 years ago every January and February.

When we got back to camp we saw that Will and Linda were out at the other neighbor’s camp,  They gave us a big wave as we drove in, so we went over to meet n greet   Skye made a good new friend really quick  Dixie is a small Brittany and they hit it off great   Despite a long hike Skye was in full play mode  

We’re not sure what we’ll do tomorrow.  It is supposed to be showers starting around 7.  We’re not hiking in the rain, but will find something.

I am puzzled that my phone won’t let me post photos tonight   Those below were on my iPad  

This cow was right in the trail and didn’t seem to care about moving aside for us.  She and Skye carefully checked each other out. 

These cattle proof gates are on the AZ Trail

This was hanging in a tree.  At this height it was most likely hung there on horseback