We camped for two weeks at the most wonderful hiking place for dogs. There are trails everywhere! The name of the park is Dead Horse Ranch. But don't worry: there were lots of horses there but they were all alive and healthy. I know Mandy and other horse-lovers in our family would have loved it here too. There are even rent-a-horse places if you don't bring your own.
Here's a map of the park, Most of the time we stayed in the Red-Tailed Hawk Loop and the Cooper's Hawk Loop so we did our poop-walks on the Mesa Interpretive Trail. There were some of the trails we never even got to so we will need to go back again.
This is what the Red-Tailed Hawk loop looks like from up on the Mesa.
And there are some horses that are going by on our trail. I guess they must be taking their poop walk too because . . .
Oh, deliciousness. Mom kept telling me "No!" and tugging on my leash. Now let me tell you, the horses in the corrals where we walked by were just fine. Actually they were worth ignoring. But then they get out of their corral and they kidnap people! And then the people who are on the horses backs talk to me and ask if I'm a corgi and that is really scary!
There were also many mountain bikes on the trails. Someone needs to explain the little arrows about right of way to them. We had to step off the trail for the bikes every time which was ok except for one thing. Huxley has had too many cholla stickers in his paws lately and being a smart dog (in spite of being a boy) he now refuses to go off the trails. He almost had his tail chopped off in the spokes of a bike as mom tried to pull him to safety.
One disappointment I had was that there was not a nature trail here which labeled what the flowers are. That means that mom has had to look them up on the internet for us.
Dad made this beautiful picture with his good camera. It turned out to be a red barberry. Yes, it has yellow flowers but it says that it will make red berries later. It has leaves that look like holly.
We found this pretty flower along the trail over by the horse corrals. Do you know what it turned out to be? Locoweed! Horses can't eat it or it will make them go crazy. It's real name is Astragalus Allochrouse or Halfmoon Milkvetch.
So, uhh. Now I'm wondering about that whole "Dead Horse" thing.
Wholeleaf Indian Paintbrush. It's different from the Indian Paintbrush up north.
We saw this at Tucson Mountain as well as at Dead Horse. I think that it is fluff grass? It is gray-bluish in color.
Now here is something that you won't believe. Mom and I saw one over by the locoweed and then we came back and dad had a picture of another one (though it's kind of blurry).
To be precise, it's a hummingbird hawk moth. Who knew?
One day Dad and Mom decided to take me on a hike on the Lime Kiln Trail. It goes up a wash and then onto some limestone cliffs to where they used to burn the limestone (that's a kiln). The trail goes miles and miles and ends up at Red Rock State Park. We didn't go that far but horses and bicycles do.
There weren't many flowers on this walk.
This picture shows some of the layers of sandstone and limestone.
This is a dry waterfall just before the site of the kiln.
It is rugged and dry country up on the cliffs.
View from the site of the kiln back toward Cottonwood.
Mom thought that we could make a loop that used the Thumper Trail to connect to the Raptor Hill trail and get back to the campground. She didn't have a map that told her how many miles that was so we went back the same way.
A good choice, now that we look at the map. We did the green part to the camera symbol.
It was a nice morning walk. Mom was very proud of what a good hiker I was. The only time I barked is when some more kidnapped people went by on horses.
