Hiking In The New Year

Mockingbird

Trail making machine

Louise at the highest point of the Indio Hills

Canyon view

View of the trail

Happy new year to you all. We celebrated New Year's Eve with our new friends from the Preserve. New Year's Day we stayed home and goofed off. Yesterday (the 2nd) we hiked the new connection between Willis Palms and Moon Country. Our neighbors dropped us at the Willis Palms trailhead (1 1/2 miles down the road from our house). We walked the first part of that loop then took the connector over the ridge. Just short of the ending in Moon Country (about 2 miles from the house) the trail ended. As you can see in the second picture the little trackhoe is the trail making machine. It still has to make the path down the gravel hill a good 300 feet. We started out at Willis Palms at 320 feet above sea level. In the third pic I am standing at the highest point on the trail--1,308 feet. The last pic shows the trail winding in the distance just over the top of the big rock. In the fourth pic the white at the bottom of the canyon is a large sandy wash. This hike took us 3 hours of walking with one 10 rest for a snack break and 4 or so 1-2 minute photo stops. We walked 5.7 miles. Once the trail is finished it will be longer. We were tired but happy after our hike. Today we took a slacker walk of 2 miles to Mc Callum Oasis. Duane took some more pix of the resident Great Horned Owl. We got the really good shot of the mocking bird and saw a Northern Flicker on one of the palms after Duane's camera ran out of battery power (of course he left his spare at home).

Basta por hoy!

Louise and Duane