SALOME WILDERNESS AREA

30 March 2011:  Headed across the lake to hike into Salome Wilderness area.  Crossed at A + Bar road which the water was a little deeper than the crossing at the Bar X road yesterday.  Had a great hike and took a lot of pictures.  What a great place to spend the day.  We hiked there last year and knew we would be back.  I would recommend it.  Hiking out was pretty warm because of the elevation gain, and it is a southwest facing slope.  The sun was pretty warm.  On our way back while crossing the river, Connie saved an elderly gentleman when his motorcycle became stuck half way across the river.  She pulled along side, hoped out into the river (she was wearing her chacos on her feet) and pushed the gentleman out of the hole he was in.  She is such a Good Samaritan!  

Click to enlarge any photo - especially the last one.

Just about to leave the trailhead.  Getting the gps set.

There are a lot of desert marigolds on this corner.  We saw more flowers on this hike than any others.

The debate is on as to what this flower is.  We both think it is a lily, but which one?  Sego lily is what we think it is, but it was much taller than any we have seen.  And the sepals are wrong I think.

Our camper is across the lake in the center of the photo.

These strawberry hedgehogs are all over.

Miss saguaro?

This is the narrow part of the Salome and heavy run offs scour the rocks clean.

Not a lot of water in there right now.

The different colors in this canyon will amaze you.

Some very old petroglyphs.

A small hedgehog growing right out of the rocks.

Connie is hiking around pretty good now.

Lots of little waterfalls.

Colors.

Our lunch spot.

Of course Connie had to go wading.  It just makes my feet hurt to watch her walk on the gravel and rocks!

Lots of wild bees getting water in the little seeps.

Okay:  What is this creature?  It is half the size of a paper dollar so it is pretty good sized.  Very skittish and would dart under a rock if you moved very fast.  And it looks like there is a face on the back of the body.

NEW DIGS AT ROOSEVELT LAKE

28 March 2011:  Broke camp and headed over to Roosevelt Lake via the Apache Trial.  Much of it is a gravel road (22 miles) and quite steep in a few places.  We did not hook up the jeep to the pickup so Connie had to drive it.  There are some pretty tight turns in the road and some of it is only wide enough for one vehicle.  Great road though.  And the views are pretty darn good also.  It took us about 2 hours to drive it, but that is with a number of stops.  We camped at a place we call the point over looking Roosevelt Lake.  Great campsite.  

At the bottom of the pass.  

You can see the road angling down the side of the mountain.   Some steep sections and sharp corners.

Our new camp between the saguaros.

 And a few strawberry hedgehogs right by camp.

29 March 2011:  Had a nice walk first thing this morning from camp.  It is all uphill right at first.  They are in a drought around here.  The pond near our old campsite is dry this year.  First time in a number of years that it has been dry.  I guess that is the reason there are hardly any wildflowers around here.  We headed down to Tonto basin to check out the river crossing and decided to do a kayak trip to the other side of the Lake.  We had not planned on that, but the water was really calm and just could not pass it up.  Nice paddle for a couple of hours.  On our way out of our campsite we saw a gila monster.  That is only the third one we have seen.  We called this one stubby because his tail was shorter than normal.  Looks like something tried to get him and ended up with just his tail.  After our paddle we checked out the river crossing and picked up a few groceries at the store.

Click to enlarge any photo.

Stubby the gila monster.

He hissed at me just before I took this picture.

A petroglyph just at the turn off the road to our campsite.

Getting my watershoes on before we carry the kayak down to the water.

This gull is making sure we do make a wake with our kayak!

Thought these cows were pretty fat even with not a lot of grass to eat.

 The river crossing.