Go West old man!: Forest road 661

Since this was a bright sunny day we wanted to hike again, but it was cooler so we picked a lower elevation trail. In previous years we have hiked a few trails on the south side of Graham. Today’s pick was down there and went south from the paved road (Rt 266). The “trail” on the map turned out to be a fairly wide gravel road. After we got out and looked carefully at the map we decided to drive out the road instead of walking out. That turned out to be a fine idea. The road came to a fork where we parked. One fork went to a ranch gate so we walked cross country to the other road and followed that for 2.5 miles.

Along the way we saw cattle, quail, ravens and Javalina! Plus the 3 road runners on the road down from Safford. The Javalina were the highlight of the day. At least 3 of them running away at a shallow angle so we got a good look at them. But too quick for a photo. On the way back down we saw them again! They had come back up to the road where Skye found them in just about the same place we had seen them before. Again they didn’t stay around for the photo op. Yet they stayed near the road so when I walked by with Skye (now leashed) they were just standing there looking at us from 15’ away. And yet again too quick running off to get the picture.

Skye also found a dried out carcass of a Gila Monster! She was carrying it around like she does with all her prize finds. We wanted to see what she had and at first we thought snake, but it had a backbone and ribs. So we knew it was a lizard of some sort, we thought of a Gila Monster but it seemed small. Back at camp we checked iNaturalist and confirmed the Gila Monster ID.They get up to 22” and this was a smaller one.

The wind has picked up tonight. It’s forecast for 20-30 mph tomorrow so we’ll do some touristy stuff in Safford. It’s a nice little city.