Archive for the ‘Mount Lemmon’ Tag
Pusch Ridge Wilderness — Image by kenne
BAD DAY ON LEMMON ROCK
The wilderness area of the Santa Catalina Mountains
provides many beautiful vistas, massive majestic
rock formations and several challenging hiking trails.
For the start of the fall hiking season,
the naturalists scheduled a hike starting
at the highest point atop Mount Lemmon.
In a prologue to frost and early fall colors,
we arranged a shuttle car at Marshall Gulch
so not to double back the six and a half-mile hike.
Having led this hike two months ago,
it combines four trails leading down into and out
of the Pusch Ridge Wilderness to Marshall Gulch.
Beginning on the Mount Lemmon trail,
we follow a forest service road through
upper mountain meadows to the Lemmon Rock trail.
The two rocky trails provide a steep 1,800-foot drop
through tall pines on rocky slopes lined with thorny shrubs
with an occasional cairn marking the many switchbacks.
However, cairns are of little help if I misread
a marker and attempts to create my own trail
down an even steeper rocky slope.
Taking a wrong turn at a trail marker,
which was about an hour into the hike,
was the beginning of my bad day on Lemmon Rock.
It quickly became apparent my pace was too fast
for the rocky slope, I was proceeding down, planting
my right foot, so to begin a slide, only to twist my ankle.
The pain told me this was not a slight twist of the ankle —
Oh, SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! Holding back additional profanity,
I quickly started getting up, checking out the damage.
Anyone who hikes with me knows I usually
have my four-pound camera/lens on
the left shoulder, which I balance with the left hand.
Not this time, since I was wearing
a center-body camera harness —
for the first time, not focusing on saving my camera.
In pain, I did a four-point crawl up to the trail
after answering some ankle movement questions
from a fellow hiker, a retired foot doctor.
Continuing to walk on the rocky trail was difficult —
generating expressions of concern from everyone,
some checking their backpacks for an ankle wraps.
Someone had a velcro Ace bandage,
without which I would not have been able
to continue the remaining five miles to the gulch.
The ankle wrap was a blessing, but having now
given the experience, more thought, although a steep climb,
the shorted hike would have been back up to the top.
We live and learn, or do we?
Would I hike five miles again on a sprained ankle?
I hope I never have to face the question.
How here I sit with my wrapped
black and blue swollen ankle iced down —
I guess I won’t be hiking again soon.
— kenne “Wrong-turn” Turner
Sprained Ankle — Image by Jeff
“Adrift on the Rock” — Image by kenne
Lemmon Rock Dreaming
Anchored on the rock
Looking afar for signals
Future turns apace.
— kenne
“Finding Room On The Ground” — Image by kenne
Thurber’s Cotton (Gossypium thurberi) or Desert Cotton — Image on Mt. Lemmon by kenne (09/25/14)
Red Bordered Satyr on a New Mexico Thistle Gone to Seed, (September 25, 2014)
— Image taken on Mt. Lemmon by kenne
Thistle gone to seed
Lost is the shade of purple
Gone with the summer.
Red-bordered satyr
On the colorless thistle
Looks without color.
— kenne
Clouds Over the Catalina Mountains — Image by kenne
Clouds billowing high
Over the Catalinas
Sunset kissed goodbye.
— kenne
New Mexico Thistle — Image by kenne
Mushrooms — Image by kenne
Red Spotted Purple Butterfly On A Wheeler Thistle, Mt. Lemmon, Arizona — Images by kenne
Ed On Marshell Gulch Trail
Marshall Gulch Trail
Marshall Gulch Trail
Sunset Trail
Wilderness Rock Trail
Sunset Trail
Sunset Trail
Sunset Trail
Sunset Trail
Images by kenne (CLICK ON ANY OF THE IMAGES FOR LARGER VIEW IN A SLIDESHOW FORMAT.)
This past Friday (August 29, 2014), the SCVN guided summer hikes on Mt. Lemmon lead its last hike — a 7.5 mile hike on the Sunset, Marshall Gulch and Aspen trails. The fall Friday guided hikes will begin October 3rd.
Near The Top of Mt. Lemmon — Image by kenne
Eleven years ago much of Mt. Lemmon was damaged by forest fire, Aspen Fire. As nature will have its way, much of the burned area has been reclaimed with maybe twenty more years before the forest to reach it previous height.
The other day while hiking the WIlderness Rock trail under a deep blue shy, I noticed the brilliant contrast of gray-white “sticks” along mountain ridge. Part of nature’s reclamation is the slow downing of the burned trees. Each year, more of more of the sticks are falling.
kenne
The Lupine Blue butterfly is an attractive butterfly that is light gray-blue in color with wings closed, displaying a beautiful blue color when open.
Since it’s wings are open only in flight, photographing them can be a real challenge. — Images by kenne captured on Mt. Lemmon
(CLICK ON ANY OF THE IMAGES FOR A LARGER VIEW IN A SLIDESHOW FORMAT.)
This past Friday I was one of the SCVN guides for the last summer hike on Mt. Lemmon. Even though I generally have one of my cameras when being a guide, hiking and trying to photograph birds don’t go together, without a lot of luck.
Just below the Marshall Gulch Saddle, I spotted several Acorn Woodpecker flying among the towering dead trees that died from the Aspen fire eleven years ago. The acorn woodpecker is a beautiful bird, both in flight and perched on the side of a tree, so I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to photograph them as the hiking group moved on. Knowing that my time was limited and that these birds were not into posing, in fact they prefer being on the opposite side of the tree from you, I began searching for photo opportunities. 
The above image might have worked if the auto-focused had locked in on the right object. After landing on the opposite side of the tree, I kept the camera pointed in the same direction when he appeared on the back-side of one of the tree limbs where I could see part of his body — my only shot is below and this time the focus was on the bird.
Not much of a shot, so I’m sharing the photo below from the blog, The Azure Gate. He’s more into birding, I’m just a photographer who has many passions. Plus, I was asking too much of my lens.
Acorn Woodpecker — Source: The Azure Gate
“A Mushroom Grows In The Forest” — Image by kenne
The Elf and the Dormouse
UNDER a toadstool crept a wee Elf,
Out of the rain to shelter himself.
Under the toadstool, sound asleep,
Sat a big Dormouse all in a heap.
Trembled the wee Elf, frightened and yet
Fearing to fly away lest he get wet.
To the next shelter—maybe a mile!
Sudden the wee Elf smiled a wee smile.
Tugged till the toadstool toppled in two.
Holding it over him, gaily he flew.
Soon he was safe home, dry as could be.
Soon woke the Dormouse—”Good gracious me!
“Where is my toadstool?” loud he lamented.
—And that’s how umbrellas first were invented.
— Oliver Herford
If only one could tell true love from false love as one can tell mushrooms from toadstools.
— Katherine Mansfield
Image by kenne
My name is, kenne,
I cry and curse each wildfire
Breathing dust and smoke.
— kenne
