At Apache Wash trail head.
In early December Renee and I traveled to Scottsdale Arizona for a couple of weeks to take advantage of the warm weather and find some geocaches. Our headquarters was a timeshare resort off of Scottsdale Road. It was a comfortable unit with a full kitchen allowing us to stay there without much additional expense. We ate simple breakfasts in our unit as we reconfirmed our travel plans for the day. We’d drive off with our car to a trail in the area and start looking for geocaches. We carried our bikes along with us so, if appropriate, one or the other of us would pedal off to get caches better found without a car. For instance on busy Shea Street it was easier for me to ride my bike on an adjacent trail than to try to park on that busy roadway. When there are many caches placed strategically close to one another (at least 528′ apart) they form what has become known to cachers as a “power trail”. One of our strategies was to find a power trail and try to find as many caches as we could along the trail. The prolific cachers in the area have placed so many power trail nearby that we could stay there for months and not locate all the hidden caches.
We snacked on nuts, granola and fruit in lieu of lunch for most days and ate supper at home. Evenings were spent watching the news, our favorite TV shows and keeping up with our Words With Friends and other games. Sleep came easily.
Pinnacle Peak
Fiberglass saguaro
One of the landmarks in the area is Pinnacle Peak. Unlike lots of the other rounded peaks in the area, Pinnacle is aptly named. Some of the trails follow the washes. Washes are the sand filled drainage areas that carry rain water. Washes run seemingly in and out of subdivisions. Hiking through a wash is tiring but it can bring you to neighborhoods with beautiful structures that blend in well with the surrounding environs. Some phone utilities are trying to blend into the surroundings as well. We came upon a saguaro cactus that was made of fiberglass. It was designed to conceal some vertical phone equipment. Control boxes that are painted bright colors is some locales are fabricated of fiberglass too to blend in resembling big rocks.
Apache Wash trail head map.
At a breakfast event of local geocachers we learned of a City of Phoenix trail system called the Sonoran Preserve. It is a multi use trail allowing hikers, bikers and horses to share the road. One one trip along the Apache Wash trail one of the many bikers stopped to greet me. It was apparent to her that the device I was holding in my hand was my Garmin GPS receiver. MakeMe is her caching name. We chatted for a bit and shared notes about caches of mutual interest. She shared that a container that we replaced for a missing one was already shred to bits by a pack rat that wanted a few choice plastic chards for its nest not far away. Wow.
The Ocotillo Trail took us west in the Preserve to a cache that is now a memorial to a local cacher who died nearby. His friends erected a memorial cache remembering his friendship. RIP, Chuck.
In memory of Chuck.
The desert terrain has lots of hazards to be aware of and avoid. The obvious ever-present cacti hold their own on the danger scale but the local green barked tree, palo verde, leaves its own marks on our memories. Long thorns cover the branches and grab anything in its near vicinity. Ouch.
Renee and I spent three days at the Preserve. The trails are well routed to explore the acres of desert land. Some of the trails are rocky and rough but with hills that I could handle. Washes criss cross the Preserve and the trails often dip into and back out of the washes as they to continue their course. It added a little excitement and variety to the course. The Sonoran Preserve was the best discovery of our 2015 trip to Scottsdale.
Saguaro are found only in the Sonoran desert.
MakeMe aka Mary
Skiba Chronicles 