On the way down Six Shooter canyon road to the trailhead this morning, I was passed by a small black sedan with Oregon plates going at least 50 mph. I was traveling about 35 but on this twisty, curvy road, the 15 mph difference seemed entirely unreasonable, like the driver was on the lam with a half dozen pursuing sheriff's deputies not far behind. I dialed 911 and asked if there had been a reported bank robbery, kidnapping, or some murderous flight from the law, but the sheriff's dispatcher to whom I had been transferred said that all was quiet. So I continued on, doing my part to uphold the posted speed limit, and praying that I wouldn't meet the black sedan at the trailhead just as they were dumping the body.
What I did see about 50 feet from the turnoff was a three foot diamondback rattlesnake on the right side of the road. I didn't see it clearly at first and I had to backup to get a good look at it. The snake's instincts about the flattening power of a 3000 pound truck caused it do an about face and return to the shrubs on the same side of the road as it started. Bela (in the back of the truck) never got a good look at it so her interest was never stimulated enough to get excited. As far as I know, Bela has never had a run-in with a rattlesnake, which seems unlikely because of the number of times that we have been hiking in prime snake habitat. She has been vaccinated for the effects of rattlesnake venom but she has yet to learn anything about avoiding a potential bite.
This winter and spring, I was avoiding this trail because of the amount of cow pies and the cow traffic that generates them. I don't like to see cows during hikes and I really dislike seeing the trail littered with months of various age classes of cow dung. I'm not adverse to poop as a general principal, but the constant reminder that cows are either present or were present in the recent past takes away from the wildness that I am looking for. It no longer feels like a path into the rugged foothills of the Pinal mountains; instead, it wreaks of a public land feed lot for a bunch of stinking cows. With the oncoming heat and drought of the summer, it now appears that most of the cows have been moved up in elevation to defecate in greener pastures, so I have no doubt that we will be seeing more of each other as I climb higher as well.
The blue palo verdes have been spectacular this year in the lower and the higher elevations. I have seen them at elevations (up to 4500 feet) that until this year I didn't know that they reached. They were easy to spot as bright yellow accents high up on the more open, south-facing chaparral hillsides. The foothill palo verdes in the lower deserts have been equally spectacular though they are in the usual predictable locations.
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