February 21, 2025
Sabino Canyon
It’s the weekend so we look at our list of places we’d like to use our new wheels to get to and pick Sabino Canyon as the obvious destination. It’s fairly close, and while Rachael walks an out and back up the Bear Canyon Trail I plan on a walking loop from the visitor center to the dam and small reservoir on Sabino Creek and back. There are a few birds reported out here that I’m hoping to pick up, and heading for the water seems like my best shot: a gnatcatcher, a thrasher, and if I’m really lucky a cardinal or pyrrhuloxia.
Let’s just keep this short and say this isn’t my lucky day. For one, even though we get there reasonably early at 10:30 the place is already overrun with visitors, others like us but who were smart enough to get an earlier start before the day gets too hot. The large parking lot at the visitor center is completely full, with cars weaving through the lot hoping someone will pull out. We end up instead about a third of a mile away in the overflow parking lot, which screws up the tracks both of us have mapped out for ourselves.
For another thing, all this excellent weather we’ve seen has come at a cost and the place is bone dry. The cacti and other desert plants really are dreadfully parched, there’s virtually no standing water running through the system, there’s no shade, and it’s hot. I really only see two birds in my entire walk, a pair of phainopeplas. And since it seems like I should take at least some other shot I capture the bloom of an ocotillo.
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For me though, that’s not the worst of it. The worst is that for some reason my right knee is really terrible today and I can barely walk. I’m doing all I can for it - I’ve got a hiking pole and I’m wearing my brace - but neither of them really gives me any relief at all. After about a mile and a half I give up - I’m not really seeing anything out here anyway - and slowly, painfully limp back to the car.
After I get there I drive a few miles west to the nearest shopping center and am happy to find an Einstein Bagel outlet where I hang out enjoying a cinnamon raisin bagel with peanut butter and nursing a cup of coffee and feeling sorry for myself until it’s time to drive back down to pick up Rachael at the agreed upon spot at the Visitor Center.
Fortunately none of this affected Rachael and her walk or else we wouldn’t have much to show for the day.
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