Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area, Cave Creek, AZ

P1000158   We are so glad we took the camp host’s advice and drove over to Spur Cross Ranch today. The park is a cooperative between Maricopa County, the town of Cave Creek and the Arizona State Park system. It is not a developed park, and you have to travel a mile and a half on a dirt road to enter. They do have a few picnic tables and porta-potties, but not much else. There are only 7 miles of trails in the park, but after our 6 mile hike yesterday we wanted a shorter, easier walk today.
We decided to stick to the Metate and Towhee trails which don’t allow horses, and it was a beautiful walk along Cave Creek itself, with an amazing amount of running water. Which of course made everything very green and lush.
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And there was the largest assortment of saguaro cactus we’ve seen anywhere.
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Also this pond with  endangered pupfish, the water being kept circulated by a solar powered pump from the old ranch well.
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As we were admiring the pond, we saw some orange bug fly by, which turned out to be a flame skimmer dragonfly. It kept coming back and posing for us on a reed in the pond. And it gave Jim a chance to use the macro feature on our new camera.
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And  now the million dollar question….
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