The Attack of the Cholla

One last hike before Santa arrives.  After a grocery and bathing suit shopping day on Monday and a visit to the gym and steam room on Tuesday we decided to do the Hieroglyphics trail on Wednesday.  It was rated easy to moderate and only 2.9 miles so we figured it would be an easy couple of hours.  It shared a trailhead with the Lost Goldmine Trail (11.7 miles roundtrip) and we saw a sign for it on Sunday on our way out to the Peralta Trail.  That trail had some good signage so we weren't too concerned about directions.

We turned off the highway onto Peralta Rd which is 7 miles of ruts to get to the trailhead.  We had Charli with us today as many of the trails in the area permit dogs.  This way when we got back to the RV we wouldn't have to deal with a dog full of energy when we had expended all of ours.  The start of the trail had rather poor signage but the trail was pretty obvious so we set out.  The main trail was Lost Goldmine and the Hieroglyphic trail would branch off after a short walk.

An hour later we were starting to doubt we were on the right trail but decided to keep going.    

The hike was filled with the usual beautiful views.









Lots of caves which were easy to see from the desert floor.  Would have been interesting to climb up there and explore.  Perhaps 20 years ago with 2 good knees but not today.

The vegetation is much heavier here than in Tucson.  Almost looks like home, except of course, for the Saguaro.

Pretty easy to see that these mountains originated from volcanos.

This is one very confused Saguaro.

The cute fuzzy little guys are Cholla Cactus.  They are nicknamed Teddy Bear Cactus which makes some sense given their appearance.  They also have the nickname Jumping Cactus, the reason for which was not initially apparent.  After we brushed past a few of them we understood.  It seems that small branches consisting of dozens of long needle sharp thorns simply jump onto your pants as you walk by.   Their thorns, which we discovered are barbed, imbed into your skin and become very difficult to extract.  I think they should be named Porcupine Cactus.  I'm packing needle nose pliers on the next trek and perhaps some of those kevlar hockey socks.

Once we hit 2 hours we knew something was wrong and decided to head back to the truck.  So a planned 2 hour walk turned into almost 4 hours and we never got a chance to see the Hieroglyphs.  
When we got back to the trailer we checked our the trail map online.  We discovered that we had started at the wrong end of the Lost Goldmine trail.  The shared trailhead was infact only a few miles of paved road from the RV Park.  At least we will know where to go next time.

Back in the comfort of our home on wheels.  Charli reflects how we all felt after our wondering in the desert for 4 hours.  I don't know how the Israelites did it for 40 years.










Got to get to bed now so I don't startle Santa.  Have already put out the milk and cookies for Santa, twice.  Ate the first batch myself.

Later.