Early Bloomers

Yesterday was one of those days where we wanted a good long hike but didn't want to drive far so we decided to redo a previous hike in the opposite direction.

We parked at the King Canyon trail head (K24) and proceeded to hike these trails: Gould Mine, Sendero Esperanza, Hugh Norris, King Canyon. We hiked the reverse of this with John and Pam two weeks ago but today we left out the spur going to Wasson Peak and for the last section of King Canyon trail we took the wash...we were armed with new information from Mark (who writes the excellent Box Canyon Blog). This route ended up being 7.7 miles.

What a perfect day it turned out to be for a hike! Thin clouds kept it cooler than expected, always a bonus when climbing hills with no cover. But the best part for me was seeing the first blooms in the desert! We've had several nicely spaced rains in the past few weeks, with another on the way tomorrow. That seems to have been just enough to get spring started!

These Mexican Poppies were the most prolific flowers we saw.

Mark had posted about petroglyphs in the lower portion of King Canyon so we searched for them on the last leg of the hike. These were located in the wash just below the point where King Canyon trail crosses the wash. We also saw a mortero farther down the wash.

The wash is fun to take through here because it has many drops over rocky ledges. I love to imagine the water thundering through during a flash flood!

It was wonderful to see the first splashes of color that means spring is on the way! With more rain in the next few days we could see an explosion of new life very soon...!