a couple dozen shots from this past Saturday...a perfect, perfect autumn day in southern Arizona, I even have the day off, and I'm stuck inside with a cold!! The injustice, oh the injustice...
This past Saturday, before getting sick, I spent the day out of the city. I finally made it down to the Santa Rita mountains, about 40 miles south of Tucson, after living here almost a year and a half. The dawn drive down to Madera Canyon was chilly--in the 30's...
Before heading into the canyon, I noticed the sun was already illuminating the granite spire of Baboquivari peak, off to west. (Baboquivari, 7734', is the cosmological 'center of the world' in Tohono O'odham legend.) Ah, desert morning--it's not often you get to stand in the shadow of a mountain at sunrise and watch that shadow retreat rapidly towards you as the sun finally peaks over the ridge behind you and washes over your shoulders...
The desert slopes gently up from the Tucson basin to the mouth of the canyon, so that by the time you start hiking up the oak-and-pine-covered slopes, you're already over a mile high--a good 3000' feet higher than the city off to the north. 
(looking back toward Tucson and the Santa Catalina range from Madera Canyon, from about 6000' )
Finally--I was up in 'them thar hills,' the 'opposite view' from the one below:
(looking south from the Catalina Highway on Mt. Lemmon, toward the Santa Rita mountains; Mt. Wrightson, on the left, is the tallest peak, 9453', between here and Mexico.) Madera Canyon is in between those two highest peaks.
The term 'sky islands' is so appropriate to describe these mountain ecosystems in southern Arizona--when you're hiking up in the forest, looking back at the decidedly un-forested desert floor, you really get the sense of how isolated these mountain oases are, almost worlds unto themselves--where bears and mountain lions still live, due to the cooler and lusher ecosystem that elevation provides. It would seem that inbreeding would be an issue in those animal populations...
Just a couple of weeks ago, in Madera Canyon, a cougar had to be shot; it was getting too 'used to' people. In other words, instead of fleeing from humans, it was beginning to stalk them. I thought about that as I passed a deer hindquarter on the road. Seriously--a rear leg and part of the ribcage--it didn't look like roadkill, and it looked fresh. Either a mountain lion or a group of coyotes must have gotten to it overnight...As I reflected on the scene's carnivoral reality, just a few yards up, I saw a half-dozen or so deer, peacefully grazing by the side of the road. Hmm...
A few minutes later, when I got to the parking lot by the trailheads, there were already a few other cars, and I could hear a few hikers and birdwatchers, so I figured it wasn't too isolated--I really didn't want to meet the creature who had recently breakfasted on the deer--and that I would be safe...
About halfway up the trail, the sun finally began to pour into the upper canyon, and the temperature rose quickly. I only went up as far as Josephine Saddle, 7080', about 2400' below Mt. Wrightson's pinnacled top:
Some locals had told me that Madera Canyon was a great place for wildflowers, but that this late in the year, there would probably be few left...
...but it hadn't frozen yet in the canyon, so there were just a few spots of color remaining:
Three years ago, there had been some forest fires up on the ridge:
...seems to be recovering nicely as a meadow...
"Clear, blue sky" <--a non-imaginative cliché, perhaps, but how can you be more exact? A glorious morning...
I like the Korean expression for autumn: 'the sky is high and the horses are fat.' So, a 'high sky' for a November day...
Southern Arizona mountains, full of oak, juniper & pine, are not known for 'fall color,' (although at the very highest elevations, stands of quaking aspen can sometimes be found), so I thought I'd try a bit of black-and-white photograhy:
...but there are occasional spots of color to be seen:
...and down along the creek bed, the Arizona sycamores put on a nice show, with their smooth bone-like trunks and papery orange leaves...
Back down by the parking lot, I saw a few desert evening primroses still in bloom, including this one 'with room for two:'
After all morning in the relatively narrow canyon, it was good to get back out to the open grasslands...
But even out there, the lower canyon continues with its microclimate ecosystem; look at the line of bright green in the middle of this view--those are the tops of tall cottonwoods, along a deep creek-carved ravine:
...and in that ravine are little rapids and this fern-lined waterfall:
...a riparian oasis full of dragonflies in the afternoon light...
...and now something colorful: cochineal--the erstwhile source of most purplish-colored textile dye. I'd heard of it before, but never seen it. Well--now I know what it looks like. This white fuzzy stuff growing on this prickly pear cactus pad..
...when you scrape off a bit and crush it on a rock, you get this deep crimson-purple:
And that's cochineal. Cool, eh?
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Instead of driving straight back to Tucson, I thought I'd drive through the Santa Rita foothills, through some open range country...
...and 'open range' it is; watch out for cows...
...back to paved road again on the other side of the mountains... 
...and a little adobe ruin. So much boom-and-bust out west...you wonder what the stories are, behind each pile of wood and mud, slowly melding back into the landscape...
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Frequently, along roads and at trailheads in national park and national forest land near the border, you run across signs like this:
Whatever happened to Smokey the Bear and 'only you can prevent forest fires'? Well, now Smokey is also a border patrol agent, it seems...The realities of coyotes smuggling both desperate people and astronomically-profitable drugs over the border have become commonplace even in, and perhaps especially in, wilderness areas...
Earlier in the day, when I was up at Josephine Saddle, I was climbing through the undergrowth, off trail, trying to look for a clearing, to get an unobstructed view north toward Tucson and south toward Mexico...I never did succeed in getting that 'perfect panorama'...But I did get this view, through the branches, looking south to the hills and mountains of Sonora, Mexico:
And then a few minutes later, a few steps way, I noticed what must have been an unofficial overnight campsite--spots in the pine straw where people had obviously slept, ashy remains of campfires, a sock here, a plastic wrapper there, and then:
No empty "Gatorade" bottles here--instead, Mexican anti-dehydration formula. Sobering evidence of migration and non-recreational camping...
A beautiful, quiet, away-from-the-city, autumnal day in a majestic mountain setting...
...my most memorable image, though, is this empty bottle of strawberry-flavored suero. Ay ay ay...
The distinctive lower peak to the right is Elephant Head Rock, 5641', between Mt. Hopkins on the right and Mt. Wrightson in the middle.
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Note how elegantly it captures the desert sunrise over the grid of city lights...with the liquor drive-in window perfectly placed on the left. Yes, 'drive-in liquor.' Scenic and Salubrious.
Note how elegantly it captures the desert sunrise over the grid of city lights...with the liquor drive-in window perfectly placed on the left. Yes, 'drive-in liquor.' Scenic and Salubrious.
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If you get bit by one, and can't detach it from your body, you're supposed to make your way to the Emergency room, where the staff will pry the gnawing critter off you. Then--you'll be ticketed. Seriously. These slow guys only bite in defense. If you get bit, it means you were harrassing it. And it's a protected species, so you'll be fined. Double owie.
Hearing that profile, I felt pretty safe, then. But it did sober us, especially my wife, as we thought back to her close (one and only, so far) encounter with a rattler back in the spring...
