As we wake up early in the morning we first have to make something for breakfast. While that is happening we have time to explore the area a bit and also better understand where each neighbor is in relation to the AirBnB. They are probably in the worst spots given the windows that have no shades but luckily they are not out that much.
Actually one of the neighbors, to the back of the house is really active, feeding the chicken and then driving around on an ATV doing maintenance work. We try to ignore him and enjoy the rabbits and lark sparrows on our side of the fence.
Before getting on the way towards our main hike of the day we decide to find a few more caches near the accomodation. Some are easy to find and some we decide to skip as we slowly make our way towards the interstate.
One of the stops is at an old gas station that we find out has been even used in a few movies, quite interesting.
And then it is time to drive up and up and up almost up to the end of the road where we know a parking lot exists that will allow us to reach the Arizona Trail section we want to hike. We are quite high up at this point, firmly in aspen territory.
The connector trail starts level through a beautiful aspen grove before descending sharply towards the Arizona trail.
Soon we arrive at the Arizona Trail, clearly marked and it is time to start towards Mexico :). It is a very nice trail with birds and butterflies all around and we really enjoy our walk.
There are many fallen trees, left, right and in the middle of the trail and we use one of these to sit down for a small snack before the trail starts descending slowly.
One of the most common birds we see here are house wrens, they seem to be everywhere always watching, always careful.
However we are more excited when we hear a red-faced warbler. We look up in the tree and after lots of craning we finally notice it, it is sooo beautiful! At this point we have left the main trail looking for an elusive cache that hasn’t been found for some time and after following some use trail now we in an area with no trail at all. It is quite wild but there are signs of human visitation everywhere like the ladder/bridge that we find, we assume it was a hunter’s perch.
After we find the cache we eat our lunch in the middle of the wilderness. The birds are signing loudly, there are flowers everywhere and the weather is great, what more can you want?
We have one more cache stop planned which is our turnaround point. We enjoy the views first and then we start looking for the cache. Initially we have no luck and just when we start to get irritated we finally notice it, phew.
We are convinced that we are not able to make it back before nightfall but that doesn’t stop us from stopping along the way whenever we see a bird or an animal, that allows us to see a few hermit thrushes that do their best to remain invisible to us until we notice that they have a fledgeling nearby, really cool.
The squirrels and chipmunks along the way are also fun to see as they watch us first before running away in the beautiful aspen groves along the way.
However the biggest bonus is on tree near the trail. We discover a Lewis Woodpecker nest, a bird that we have never seen before! And now we can see both mama and papa Lewis woodpeckers, which look surprisingly different, so different that the first people that saw them assumed they were a different species. We can also see the chicks beaks but we do not want to disturb the family too much so we soon continue towards the parking lot. On the way we meet an interesting character that strikes a conversation with us about cameras and nature, quite unexpected. And then tired we buy some takeout food in Flagstaff and retire to our AirBnB for dinner and sleep.
