At 5 this morning I shot up and was wide awake. Might have something to do with going to bed a little after 8 last night. What can I tell you? I was tired.
I gave Sadira a call early on to see if she’d like to go out to Promised Land. I wanted to get further in this morning, take photos, and GPS the area. She said sure and popped over about 45 minutes after I got in touch.
While the ride there is less than 25 miles it sure takes a while to get in. Deep washes, cut away chunks of road (especially close to the parking area). The Titan fortunately handles it with ease. By the time we reached the broken windmill I knew we’d only have 5 or 10 more minutes.
We parked the truck and started our walk into the canyon well before 8 a.m. Yes, an early start indeed. As we approached the dry river bed we both heard something. Flowing water, and lots of it. Last week the river was dry, and this week there was actually a flow strong enough to hear it a way off. Wow!
Walking in wasn’t as easy as the trip that I took with Andy & Brooke. There were many water filled areas. And hopping across the rocks here isn’t as easy as other places. The stones in the river bed are worn smooth, and even Vibram soles don’t stick easily.
We reached the first climbing area after sloshing through water and scrambling over the smooth stones only to find you couldn’t even stand under the cliff. A heavy flow of water was rolling through. Nobody could belay that climb today!
Finally, we found we really couldn’t “hike” further in. If I’d worn my Chacos today we could have progressed on (through the water), but for once I was wearing real hiking shoes instead of my sandals. Go figure!
With our path for forward progress blocked we made our way out of the canyon and back to the truck. We took our time, as it’s an interesting walk along the river bed, and even more interesting with the water flow.
Along the way I came across a wonderful little lizard who allowed me to take many photos. The lizard really blends in well with the rocks though. Pretty hard to see at first.
After snapping away at the little reptile I decided to take a few flower photos. That’s when I noticed a bee. Or maybe not a bee. Striped back end, but a green face. Well, not sure what type of insect it really is, but it was fun trying a few more macro shots.
If you can’t tell, I have been working on my macro shots lately. I think this little insect came out well. You should see the original version at full resolution! I never put up full photos here, as it would take forever to upload, and to download for readers.
There’s the wrap for this morning. Our hiking adventure was over before 10 a.m., but keep in mind the wakeup time! 
Ah, and here’s one more of my recent practice macro shots. Hope you enjoy it!
Don’t forget, I’m now posting more photos at my flickr site as well.
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Beautiful, Beautiful Rich! What a fun early AM trip…a great way to start my Sunday…and all the water? Sheesh, it was like being in some magic part of AZ, and the water/rock picture up there is my most favoritest! I certainly can’t wait to go back when we can hike further in…next time bringing a couple of different selections of shoes depending on what’s happening down there…nothing like ice-skating in the Chacos!
Wonderful photos, my friend!
I have one I took with dad’s pocket camera today, but can’t post it on my blog:-(
Dad’s got some funky settings on his computer and it changes the way I access the blog. Can’t find a work-around.
It’s a closeup pic of tiny frog napping inside a bromeliad plant. Will try to post it Friday. Boy, I really wish I had hubby’s Digital SLR for my little photo. The frog was just too cute!
Nothing too surprising about there being a stream through that section, tho it sounds like it was deeper than I might expect. Our experience (outdated, I fear) is that there was almost always live water in the Verde starting with the string of “lakes” about 1 mile east of the old Santa Fe bridge at the old SR 89 crossing.
The surprising part was that only 1 week early the bed was dry! Returning on Sunday was like visiting an entirely new place. Pretty cool to see the change.