Sans Canine

How I got my name

I had to do the morning trek all alone today because Becca is on the Injured Reserve list.  She'll be out of hiking circulation for a week; then I'll have to take her on shorter treks while I monitor her condition carefully.  At the start of this morning's outing I was thinking I wouldn't go far because the conditions were brutal.  We had heavy rain in the early evening yesterday, and that left the atmosphere heavily ladened with

I'll just hide behind this cactus

moisture.  I had to mop my face of perspiration with my hiking towel quite a few times before a decent wind picked up to provide ample evaporative cooling.  Then I started to discover things I deemed worthy of photographing and that's all she wrote; the result was a much longer hike than I've done in a long while.

High elevation cactus garden

Doing a split

Ocotillo forest

Tiny Rainbow Hedgehog Cactus

On the edge of a steep gorge

Looking toward the Organs

Very narrow arroyo

Say's Phoebe

Out on a limb

After the rain

B&W of the same scene

Driving to the mountaintop

Nearing a steep curve

Making the bend

 

Barrel Cacti bud mandala

Closeup of buds

Shiny green hummer

This and the next 2: Nipple Beehive Cactus flowers

Magenta?

Quite a few flowers

Heavy flow through this arroyo last night

Fishhook Barrel Cactus

This and the next 3:  Barrel Cacti flowers

Disappearing over the rim

At least one of these birds is a Red-tailed Hawk

Unhappy non-hiker