Bushnell Tanks is one of preferred areas to hike as there are quite a few trails branching out and it also has a permanent creek to explore. Today we are lucky as the highway is blocked the other way but open in our direction and after parking we are soon on our way.
Here is also one of the access points to the Arizona Trail which warrants a info board and more surprisingly today a trail from the “Arizona Trail Association”. This is new and certainly interesting, we are wondering if work is being done on the trail.
And the answer is around the bend, there are multiple cars of volunteers that have come to work on the trail. This is after the monsoon that followed a huge fire, we can see immediately that the road/trail was impacted and assume the Arizona Trail was impacted similarly.
Sycamore Creek is flowing well today and we cross it carefully. The road then follows the creek for a while and we keep a close eye for any interesting birds.
The road can be overgrown in spots but mostly it is well defined and we make good time on the flat sections.
As it starts to cross a few hills we are surprised at how much it changed after the fire. You can see burned cacti everywhere but still there are signs of nature regenerating, there are lots of yellow flowers on the roadside for example.
In fact due to the monsoon there are flowers everywhere, including beautiful Morning-Glories and Trailing Windmills.
As usual where there are flowers there are butterflies like the Arizona Sister. More unexpected today we also see our first Red-Spotted Toad, guess it is still quite wet after the rain.
Another unexpected thing we encounter on the way are gourds. There are finger-leaved gourds everywhere including covering the road.
After about 3 miles we reach the end of the road, at the eponymous Tanks. From here we plan to return on a slightly different route that encompasses a section of the Arizona Trail.
However first we have to make it to the trail using unmarked roads. Initially the roads look ok but as we approach the Arizona Trail the road disappears and it becomes a chasm that we have difficulty crossing.
The views on this stretch however are beautiful and we stop multiple times to take photos and enjoy the neverending view.
We breathe a sigh of relief when we reach the Arizona Trail. We now know there is no insurmontable obstacle ahead of us, we just have to follow the trail. However here it is a bit difficult to do that as the trail is overgrown, for certain we now understand why those volunteers are out to repair and clean the trail.
As we do our best to follow the trail it is getting dark so we are happy when we reach Sycamore Creek, at least from here we know how to get to the car even if we lose the trail.
We take a bit more time now to look at the flowers, we are surprised how many are in bloom even in mid-October.
The last section has been severely impacted by the fire and here we see the results of the volunteers work. The trail is clear and cleaned, we are quite thankful to them. The only drawback to this section is that for some reason it climb quite high instead of keeping level, at least we get some great views of the mountains. And then it is getting dark and with the headlamps out we cross the creek and arrive at the car. The blockage on the highway is long gone so we can drive back home directly after a great time in the outdoors.
