Trailcam (Heads & Butts)

I hiked out to swap the memory card in the trailcam this week. It turned out the location for the camera was too close to the trail and all I got was heads and butts. A horse and deer ambled by at night but they were so close to the camera that most was cut off. I went back the same day and moved the camera to another location. We'll see how that turns out.

Giving the camera a look

Some Botanical Notes

This winter I've developed an interest in Sonoran Desert plants that thrive in cool wet weather. These plants include ferns, spike-mosses, mosses and liverworts. We've had some cool wet weather this month and these plants seem to be doing well. They are generally found in small niche communities on north facing slopes or cliffs. Many of the plants prefer sheltered clefts in rocks and I've come across them on the bluffs east of Butcher Jones Beach near Saguaro Lake and in canyons on the north side of Usery Mountain.  Mosses are bright green and abundant on boulders on the north side of Coon Bluff.

Parry's Lip Fern - Canyon on north side of Usery Mountain

Star Cloak Fern - Bluff east of Butcher Jones Beach

Wright's Lip Fern - Bluff east of Butcher Jones Beach

The spike-mosses are creeping plants that can form dense patches in wet areas. The leaves are only green during wet periods but curl inward and become dormant during dry periods.

Spike-Moss - Bluff east of Butcher Jones Beach

Another cool weather, shade loving plant is the liverwort. Liverworts are unusual due their lack of leaves and vascular system. The plant consists of a flattened multi-celled structure containing green photosynthetic material (chloroplasts) and a single-celled rhizome for an anchor. The plants can form large mats in wet, shady areas but completely dry out in arid periods.

Liverwort - Canyon north of Usery Mountain

Liverwort - Bluff east of Butcher Jones Beach

The cool, wet weather has also refreshed the moss communities. The following photos were taken along some boulders on the north face of Coon Bluff near Phon D. Sutton Recreation Area.

I'll be out looking for more over the next couple of months.

Adios

Jones Wash

I finally got around to hiking up the ridge on the north side of Saguaro Lake. I parked at the Butcher Jones Beach overflow parking lot and walked through a mesquite bosque into the wash bordering the ridge. The wash runs east to west along north facing bluffs of the ridge.

Jones Wash

The north facing bluffs provided shelter from the intense Sonoran Desert sun for communities of liverworts, mosses and ferns.

Thallus Liverwort

The ridge is composed of conglomerate and tuff (welded ash) laid down during and after volcanic activity in the middle tertiary period (10-20 Mya).

From ridge looking down into wash

There are several wet weather stream beds draining the ridge. The small stream below contained water from recent rains.

Wet Weather Stream

The north facing slope also included shaded areas that supported ferns, mosses and spiked club moss.

Wright's Lipfern

Star Cloak Fern and Spiked Club Moss

I've always been attracted to north facing slopes because they support such a large diversity of plant types and isolated communities of plant life dependent on shade and moisture.  There are other places in this vicinity that I want to explore on future walks.

Revised 11/28/2019

I returned to the wash a few days later and continued upstream for a mile or so. The wash was wide and unobstructed with nice views of surrounding mountains. There were also numerous deer tracks and game trails cutting the wash.

About a half mile from the parking area there was a point where the wash had long ago cut through a sandstone and conglomerate ridge leaving tall bluffs on each side of the wash.  The bluffs were riddled with caves. The cave are good shelter for animals and have probably also been shelter for people.

I want to return again soon but park along a side canyon, hike across the large wash and explore some game trails.

Adios

Trailcam

I finally bit the bullet and bought an inexpensive trailcam a few weeks ago.  I'd hesitated because the models that I'd seen previously seemed too expensive for me to leave along the trail. I bought a $30 Tasco thinking that I wouldn't be too upset if it was lost. I needed to invest an additional $20 in batteries (8 lithium) and a memory card (16Gb Sandisk).  The first time I set it up for 5 days overlooking a game trail in the Tonto National Forest but didn't capture any wildlife.  I did get a couple of selfies and 1,200 photos of a branch waving in front of the lens.

Important lessons were learned from the first trial: 1) always look your best, 2) don't count on much wildlife unless there are plenty of recent signs, 3) clear out all brush from in front of the camera. This second trial worked out much better and the camera caught a small band of Javelina and no waving branches.

I should still work on my appearance since rude comparisons were made to Sasquatch.

I plan to set it up again next week. We'll see what shows up.

Adios

Whitford Canyon

A friend and I spent a day roaming around Whitford Canyon taking photos for a riparian project.  It involved several miles of travel on sometime rough forest service roads and short hikes along Whitford Wash. We pulled off of US 60 directly across from Boyce Thompson Arboretum onto FS 357 then onto FS8 (E Happy Camp Rd.). We eventually turned onto FS650 (N Happy Camp Rd.) where we spent most of our travels.  The roughest piece of road was the turnoff to Barnett Camp (FS 982). It was narrow and rough but passable in a high clearance 2WD truck. At the crossing with Whitford Wash we parked at an old perlite quarry and hiked down the wash for some photos.

Looking downstream on Whitford Wash at hiking buddy.. Perlite mine at upper right.

The photos are to support a project organized by Friends of the Tonto National Forest. The project involves having volunteers travel to selected riparian areas in the Tonto National Forest to take photos at the same locations on successive years. The goal is to track changes in riparian vegetation due to grazing, climate and flooding. The Whitford Canyon sites were chosen for attention this year because the region near the creek's headwaters was burned during a large fire (Woodbury Fire) the previous summer. It is expected that the area may be impacted by flash flooding due to lack of ground cover in the burn area.

I picked up a perlite sample and some chalcedony nodules from near the perlite quarry.

Perlite sample at bottom, chalcedony nodules above

We hiked farther upstream in the canyon to get to the next photo locations. In this area, Whitford Canyon is bounded by bluffs composed of Dripping Springs Quartzite formed from sandstone and conglomerate during the middle Proterozoic era. The Dripping Springs Quartzite formation contains many distinct beds of red-brown quartzose sandstone and pebbled conglomerate. Some of the layers are clearly cross bedded as if formed by wind blown sand.

Dripping Springs Quartzite

Dripping Springs Quartzite (see cross bedding at base)

Dripping Springs Quartzite

Dripping Springs Quartzite

We returned to the truck and bounced back along FS982 to return to FS650 and continue north along the canyon to the furthest upstream site. It was located along the upper portion of Whitford Creek and accessed via a section of the Arizona Trail. This portion of the canyon changed from the dramatic quartzite cliffs to more open country and large blocks of older Pinal Schist from the early Proterozoic era.

Pinal Schist

Looking upstream along Whitford Wash

Pinal Schist

Our next stop required backtracking on FS650 until the next crossing of the Arizona Trail. We parked nearby and proceeded along the Arizona Trail downstream to the next location. Along the way we saw some stone wall that looked very old but it's purpose wasn't clear. There was a lot of old discarded lumber nearby so it might have been ranching related or possibly the wall was originally built by prehistoric native peoples.

Old Stone Wall

The next photo locations were downstream in a rugged canyon surrounded by quartzite cliffs.  We hiked through dense stands of mesquite and past several old dead cottonwoods.  Unfortunately, our directions to the locations were 12-18 years old and some portions of the trail and wash had shifted over the years.  We made our best guesses and took photos as near to described as possible then returned to the truck.

Whitford Canyon looking downstream

Whitford Canyon looking upstream.

After a long hot bumpy ride back to US60, we drove up to the town of Superior for a beer and burger at Porter's Cafe.

Adios

Salt River Terraces

I just read an interesting article [1] regarding ancient terraces on the lower Salt River. I was well acquainted with four of the terraces; Sawick, Mesa, Blue Point and Lehi. The first three are easily found in the Lower Salt River Recreation Area.  The Sawick terrace is the oldest and is found on top of the Mesa Terrace, both of which are situated on the Blue Point terrace.

The Coon Bluff and Phon D. Sutton parking areas lie on the Blue Point terrace. The three oldest terraces are accessible from the Phon D. Sutton parking area and from Bush Hwy southeast of the Usery Rd. intersection.  The terraces are considered “scarp” terraces because they were formed by cutting through bedrock. The cutting through bedrock may be related to uplift of the mountainous transition zone to the east. The gravels on the Sawick and Mesa terrace are well cemented by caliche. The Sawick terrace is estimated to have been excised 1-2 million years ago [2].

On Mesa Terrace with higher Sawick Terrace in immediate background

Looking down from Mesa Terrace to Blue Point Terrace

Gravels cemented with caliche on Mesa Terrace

The 2010 article reports findings describing another older and higher terrace named the Stewart Mountain Terrace. Characteristics of the gravel hint at different flow of the Salt River when it was formed. The new terrace was discovered at 1870' on the north side of the Salt River southwest of Stewart Mountain and east of the Verde River. The types of gravels found on the new terrace suggest ancient river flow different from the current floodplain.

The most interesting fact for me is that the proposed new terrace suggests that the river was once at a much higher elevation (approx 500' higher) and much wider than the current river. That's a lot of river.

Another mechanism discussed is that the terrain may have been 500' lower millions of years ago. As the terrain rose, the river could have cut successively lower terraces.


[1] STEWART MOUNTAIN TERRACE: A NEW SALT RIVER TERRACE WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR LANDSCAPE EVOLUTION OF THE LOWER SALT RIVER VALLEY, ARIZONA, September 2010, PHILLIP H.LARSON,RONALD I.DORN, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, PO Box 875302, Tempe, AZ 85287-5302; JOHN DOUGLASS, Department of Geography, Paradise Valley Community College, 18401 N 32nd St,Phoenix, AZ 85032; BRIAN F. GOOTEE, Arizona Geological Survey, 416 W Congress St., Ste 100, Tucson, AZ 85701-1381;and RAMON ARROWSMITH, School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, PO Box 871404, Tempe, AZ 85287-1404

[2] TERRACES OF THE LOWER SALT RIVER VALLEY IN RELATION TO THE
LATE CENOZOIC HISTORY OF THE PHOENIX BASIN, ARIZONA, by Troy L. Pewe, Guidebook to the Geology of Central Arizona, 1978.