tree – Page 10

Firsts

First light falls upon a foothill palo verde tree as the moon hangs above, taken yesterday morning on my first hike of the Sunrise Trail in McDowell Sonoran Preserve. Life has been full of a lot of firsts lately and hiking has been no exception. This morning was the first time I hiked in shorts since arriving here, as I’m testing out when I want to wear short sleeves and shorts based on temperature, and unfortunately it was also the first time I slipped on the trails here. Nothing serious, just skinned up one of my shins, but I don’t think in two decades of hiking in the Northwest I ever drew blood (to be fair I rarely lose my footing).

But mostly the firsts have been positive. First time seeing animals, first time seeing plants, first time visiting parks, first time hiking trails. The new Columbia sun hat and new Merrell hiking shoes are both working well, Friday morning I wore the shoes for the first time on a flat hike and by Saturday morning I was confident enough to wear them on this hike of the Sunrise Trail, which is mostly constant elevation change. It was also quite windy so fortunately I had the chinstrap on my hat cinched tight or my new hat would be soaring above the desert even now.

Adapting to the Desert

We’ve been here four weeks now, though strangely it feels to me like we’ve been in Arizona a month but left Portland months ago. One of the appeals of moving here was the unique beauty of the Sonoran Desert and I’m thankful that not only have I been able to start exploring the desert, but I’ve been out six times! A welcome respite after only getting out once since November while in Oregon. What a blessing it is to be out on the trails.

One of the things I looked for in a rental house was easy access both to work and to local hiking trails, thankfully our house is only 15 to 30 minutes from a number of trails, allowing me to explore the desert in spring before the brutal summer heat arrives. While the trees here like this palo verde don’t provide shade, I have found some trails that are shaded in the morning by the surrounding hills, so hopefully those will be tolerable for a couple hours after sunrise even during the summer months. We shall see.

In the meantime adjusting to hiking here means adjustments to my hiking gear.

I’ve had the same hiking hat my entire time in Oregon, a hat we picked up at REI after we moved there, but after a few hikes in the desert I realized I was going to need a hat designed for the heat. On Friday the Columbia Sportswear Bora Bora II Booney hat arrived and was immediately put to use on both hikes this weekend. I immediately noticed the difference as the new hat is lighter and lets out more heat while keeping out the sun. Loved the old hat and will love the new one. I figure sun hats here are like sunglasses, you’ll want multiple ones so you’re never caught without one when you need it, so I may keep the old hat in the car and maybe pick up a different style of hat as well, but this one I expect to be my main hiking hat.

I’ve been wearing a pair of old New Balance trail runners on all my hikes so far, which work well on the flat hikes but on some of the hills I would have preferred a more structured shoe. Both of my pairs of hiking shoes are waterproof and a bit warm for the desert in the summer (they’ll be fine in the winter). Saturday my Merrell Moab 2 Ventilator shoes arrived, I haven’t worn them hiking yet but Saturday night I wore them around the house and they fit well and don’t seem like they’ll need any break-in. I ordered them in black as I like the look despite knowing from the moment I hit the trails they’ll be covered in desert dust from here on out.

Saturday morning after returning from my hike I ordered two Klean Kanteen 27 oz water bottles to join the two I’ve had for years (as well as a smaller one) and they arrived that afternoon, a perk of the the Phoenix metro area is Amazon has same-day delivery on some items. They joke about the dry heat but it really is dry here and you have to work harder to stay hydrated. I always try to hike with more water than I’ll need so it was time to up the water bottle ante, the two new bottles were put to use this morning. The Klean Kanteen bottles are sturdy and I’ve never had a leak, which is important to me as they sit next to some expensive camera gear. They come in a variety of colors, really love these bottles.

I do miss Portland’s tap water though.

My wife picked up a small bottle of sunscreen so I can keep it in my backpack in case I forget to apply it before I leave or if I need to reapply it. I used the same bottle of sunscreen in Oregon for many, many years, as I rarely needed it unless I was above tree line or out on the coast. Here though I never hike without it. I already had some good hot weather hiking shirts, I’m still testing out when I’ll wear long versus short sleeves, and I have a couple pairs of lightweight hiking pants that convert to shorts, so I’m OK there. I did order a long sleeve swim shirt and a new swimsuit, as while I haven’t swum much the past thirty years, that’s about to change and I enjoyed testing them out in our pool this afternoon.

A quick dip in the pool to cool off, and to get some exercise even in the heat, that I think I’ll love.

Lots of pictures to come, this desert really is something special.

Between a Rock and Hot Place

A lovely palo verde grows beside the large rocks of a boulder field at Pinnacle Peak Park, I am constantly amazed at the places life can flourish. The Sonoran Desert is so lovely bathed in the soft morning light.

Stretched in All Directions

As soon as I arrived in Arizona for my interview in February I was struck by the green trees I saw as I drove around town. The palo verde is the state tree of Arizona, the green in the bark contains chlorophyll so they can use both bark and leaves for photosynthesis. I came across this one shortly before sunrise when I visited Pinnacle Peak Park in Scottsdale. We have accomplished a lot in the past six weeks but there is still a lot to do, I feel a bit like this tree, sprawling in all directions, a bit worse for the wear, but still standing, still growing.

The Green Land

In the Northwest our winters are green as during the rainy season moss grows on everything that sits in shadow. I’m going to miss seeing it grow on trees. I’m not going to miss seeing it grow on my car.

Goodbye Irving Park, I Love You

As our move to Arizona draws close, let me say goodbye to some of the things I’ve loved about our time in the Pacific Northwest, starting with Irving Park. When we moved to Portland 16 years ago, we only had cats so we never considered how close the house might be to a dog park. When we adopted Ellie in 2009 and trained her to go off-leash, it was a delight to discover a dog park was only a few blocks away. After not stepping foot in the park until then we’ve visited twice a day, every day, since. In the sun, in the fog, in the rain, in the snow. Not the ice, Ellie hates the ice.

These days Ellie keeps her evening walks short so we go up to Irving Park but not all the way to the dog park, but most mornings she wants to make it up the hill. More to meet the owners than the other dogs, both because she adores people and because she never misses an opportunity to try to convince someone to give her a treat. After that we head out into the neighborhood, occasionally she wants to go straight home but usually she’s up for a longer ramble, even at 14 years old.

The trees started blooming a couple of weeks ago so I took advantage of a sunny morning to get one last picture of Ellie at the park. A variety of trees ring the paths of the park, some giants from long ago whose lives were spared when the area was carved from the forest. A handful of years ago I deliberately traded a lot of my hiking on the weekends for long walks with Ellie when I realized our aging pup would still go on long walks if they were in the morning, and while I miss the hiking I wouldn’t trade my time with Ellie for it.

Thank you Irving Park for many great memories with this greatest of pups. Thank you to all who helped create and maintain the park over so many years. Goodbye, I love you.

📷: Sony A6500 | Sony-Zeiss 24mm f/1.8
🗓️: March 11, 2018

Balance

I grew up with mockingbirds but I left them behind when I moved to Oregon 21 years ago. We’ve been reacquainted at times over the years when I traveled back east, I met this mocker eating berries while balanced at the end of a tree branch on a trip to South Carolina in 2006. My stepfather had passed away a couple of weeks earlier and my wife and I stayed with my mother through Christmas. I took a number of walks around the neighborhood, watching the local wildlife, seeking out joy to balance the sadness.

Mockingbirds will be a part of my life once more, they are one of a small group of birds that aren’t in my part of Oregon but are in both Arizona and the Southeast where I grew up. Looking forward to the reunion.

Misconceptions

I lived in small towns and cities growing up so the only urban neighborhoods I saw were the ones I saw on TV, which tended to be a sea of concrete and asphalt. So I was surprised when we started looking at houses in Portland years ago and found established neighborhoods full of unique old houses and old trees. This is our neighborhood of Irvington, covered in a light dusting of snow on Christmas Eve. I’m going to miss how walkable this neighborhood is, I’m going to miss these old houses, and I’m certainly going to miss these old trees. People talk about the heat in Arizona but the thing that struck me when I visited on a cooler day was both the dry air and the lack of shade due to the lack of trees.

It’s not just that it will be hot in the summer, but that you can’t escape the sun. I have an old bottle of sunscreen, I can’t even tell you how old it is, because I only use it when I’m up above the tree line or when I travel. Normally I hike in long sleeves, long pants, and a brimmed hat, and since I’m usually hiking in the forest I don’t have to worry about the sun. That’s about to change, but lest I sound too negative, I am genuinely excited about exploring the desert and photographing the completely different landscapes, plants, and animals.

My hunch and my hope is that I will love both places, my old home and my new home, and that I’ll appreciate each for what they are.

God and Humanity

Cone on the Cob

A Douglas’ squirrel chews through the outer part of the cone to get to the seed underneath, like we would eat corn on the cob except that we are interested in the corn not the cob. A lovely little squirrel, and native too. Taken at Leadbetter Point State Park on the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington.