After a week of coughing and fever we feel a little better and decide to do a shorter test hike on State Trust land starting from Ironwood Road. This is an area we haven’t been before but there are fewer and fewer of those unfortunately. We have a series of caches planned for today so on we go exploring.
There are many trails crisscrossing the state trust land and we follow them from cache to cache while keeping an eye out for saguaros, the old ones are really in bad shape here. Likely due to human activity, shooting at saguaros is quite common in more remote areas unfortunately.
The major trail through this section of state trust land is the powerline road following the powerlines through the preserve. There are quite a few of them passing here and likely this will make the area less likely to be sold for development.
There is hope for the saguaros though in the more remote reaches of the state trust land, we find both young ones and older cacti that seemed to escape the wonton destruction of their brethen.
The land here is flat, this is why we come here when we try to recuperate, and it always has some nice views of the Superstition Mountains and desert especially if you try to get a bit off major trails.
We are also launching our drone for a nice bird’s eye view of the area. You can clearly see where the protected land starts and ends, there are neighborhoods all around it, luckily this patch of land doesn’t seem to be planned for development.
An unexpected bonus of our drone launch is that we scare a Great Horned Owl that flies away. However it is part of a pair of owls and we study the second one for some time from a safe distance before moving on. The caches themselves are quite fun and most are turtle themed with some innovative designs. And then we get tired and it is time to return back to the car after a nice day out, maybe next time we will be in better shape for a longer hike.
