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Begonia Grandis

Macro!!

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Once a year when Pam’s gardens are at a summer peak I venture out to capture her work in early morning light. For this image I used a handheld Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III SLR with the Canon lens EF 100 f 2.8L Macro. This is the first post of this series. Click me for “Water Lily Flower with hornet,” from my photography gallery.

Click photograph for a larger view.

Begonia is a large genus of flowering plants, sub-tropical and tropical natives, adapted her to a hanging basket put out after the last frost, the end of May, Memorial Day, in these parts. The flowers are monoecious, both male and female unisex flowers bloom on a single plant.

Pictured are double male flowers composed entirely of stamens. This plant has a sour flavor enjoyed in parts of its range. Over consumption will produce ill effects as the tissues are high in oxalic acid, a poison to humans.

Here, the leaves and flowers glow in the gentle light of early morning.

Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Looming

a deadly quest

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O’Grady Canyon widens at the meeting with Little Boulder Canyon.

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Prickly Pear cactus is in foreground. In season these produce magnificent flowers, see below.

Prickly Pear flowers at the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum outside of Tucson, Arizona

East by Southeast a low ridge forms the west side of the canyons above which Weaver’s Needle looms. “Weavers Needle has played a significant role in the stories of the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine. The Needle’s shadow reportedly indicates the location of a rich vein of gold, and many treasure hunters have searched for it. The hunt for gold around Weavers Needle has been pursued by hundreds (possibly thousands) of people. Weavers Needle has a large split in the side that makes it look like it has two tops, not one. This can only be viewed from the side.” — wikipedia

To the far left is Palamino Mountain.

Reference: wikipedia “Weavers Needle”

Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Signs

a deadly quest

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The Dutchman trail curves around this rocky outcrop on the east side of O’Grady Canyon, on the left are two hoodoos, on the right side a vandal has defaced the rock. Prickly Pear Cactus in foreground. Malapais Mountain, in distance. Malapais is from the Spanish term Malpaís, meaning badlands.

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Signs and wonders, such as this mysterious “S”, lure people into the Superstitions. Two years after our expedition, July 2010, three men set out from First Water trailhead on a quest for Superstition Gold, never to be seen again. Unprepared for the summer heat, the skeletons of two found January 2011 on the slopes of Yellow Peak, a straight-line mile from this location.


Click me for a story of three men lost in the Superstition Wilderness

Click me for the Final Word on Men Lost in Superstition Wilderness –CURTIS MERWORTH

Click me for the Final Word on Men Lost in Superstition Wilderness — ARDEAN CURTIS CHARLES

Click me for the Final Word on Men Lost in Superstition Wilderness — MALCOM MEEKS

Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Blessing

blessed water

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The blessing of desert water flows through a portion of West Boulder Canyon known as O’Grady Canyon, named after “Rattlesnake” Tim O’Grady who prospected the area mid-Twentieth Century.

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Even more so as this is an intermittent flow, dry boulders offer no solace in dry seasons. In the distance, beyond a Black Mesa ridge studded with Saguaro cactus, is Malpais Mountain (Spanish, “Bad Country”). Closer, on the right, is the ridge of Palamino Mountain.


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Red

Eye catching color

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Capturing photographs and videos on the fly using an Iphone, we visited Fillmore Glen State Park, Moravia, New York with our granddaughter, Nia. This is the sixth post of this series. Click me for the first post, “The Space Station and the Waterfall.”

Click any photograph for a larger view.

Green upon green upon green, a thousand shades of green grace the gorge of Dry Creek (“Fillmore Glen”) in summertime. Pictured above is another example of a fallen green left to return to earth. Yet the careful observer will notice spots of red.

Solomon Seal NOT

Walking the level the these red might be overlooked hanging sparsely under nodding branches. From the leaf shape you may wrongly identify this as Solomon’s Seal. This specimen, growing on a shale ledge of the glen, reveals sparse red fruit, not the plentiful dark blue of Solomon’s Seal. This is Rose Twisted-Stalk (Streptopus roseus), a member of the Lily family. The two are often found close together. I found no Solomon’s Seal this trip.

Cranberry?

The moss beneath the Rose Twisted-Stalk is plentiful here beneath the constantly dripping porous shale glen wall, mini swamps. I am not confident enough to following identification to each the red fruit. From the damp location and leaf shape I am guessing this to be mountain- cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea). The first photograph of this posting is an overview.

A shallow grotto

Finely layer shale in the following photograph is sediment eroded over 50 million years from the Arcadian Mountains, washed into the shallow inland sea of the Appalachian Basin. We see here a transition between fine, fragile shale and another, harder, durable sedimentary rock, limestone. There was a stone on the otherwise flat surface of the limestone around which the sediments forming the shale grew.

We see the detail because here is a persistent, sparse spring. The trail builds created a well here to carry the outflow, preventing trail erosion.

Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Into O’Grady Canyon

O’Grady Canyon named after prospector “Rattlesnake” Tim O’Grady, renowned for exploring Superstitions.

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Twenty-three minutes later I caught up with Dave and Al taking a break at a large loop in the trail, a half mile below Parker Pass.

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Fourteen years later, using GoogleEarth, I deduce the location to be 33°27’19.39″N , 111°24’38.58″W. After the horse party proceeded, I stayed behind to record them.

….as well as the surroundings. The geological formation is the escarpment of Black Mesa above O’Grady Canyon.

The name O’Grady Canyon piqued my interest, so I poked around the internet and found this posting from Tom Kollenborn, a well-known authority on the Superstitions.

“I was told Tim O’Grady prospected the area for about twenty-five years before moving to Washington. He was a well known character around Apache Junction from about 1945 – 1980. There are other interesting stories about Tim. I visited with him several times on the old First Water – Charlebois Trail in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s when I worked for the Barkley Cattle Company.

Tim’s Saddle was named after “Rattlesnake” Tim O’Grady a prospector who searched the Superstition for the Dutchman’s Lost Mine in the 1950’s and 1960’s. O’Grady Canyon is also named after him. The story goes something like this. A USGS map crew was working in the area around Parker Pass in the early 1950’s and came across this old white bearded prospector. They ask him about several landmarks in the area and their names. He pointed to a saddle and said that is Tim’s Saddle and the canyon on the right is O’Grady Canyon. They talked for a while about other landmarks and finally ask the old prospector for his name. He looked at them politely and said he was Tim O’Grady. The last I ever heard of “Rattlesnake” Tim O’Grady was he moved to Washington. He was 87 at the time.


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Glacier!!!

experience a glacier of Patagonia

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Two person ship launch against glacier base.

Summer was the season for our visit to the edge of eternal, for now, Patagonian ice fields.  Remnants from the last ice age, larger than some (small) countries.  The site is surprisingly noisy with sharp, explosive, ice crackles.

More amazing even than the sounds, the dark shading on the ice is volcanic dust from recent eruptions of many cones

Click this link for my series of posts about Chilean fjords and glaciers we visited February 2016.

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Respite

stopping for a look around

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One hour and twenty minutes into Lost Dutchman Trail I stopped for a look around.

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My party is out of sight, Parker Pass seems no closer, Weaver’s Needle looms 3.1 miles away over several ridges.

A sole day hiker is on the trail ahead. I carried a gallon of water with a siphon pipe, so was taking sips every so often and becoming dehydrated anyway. Ahead is the ridge of Parker Pass, the pass is the green slant of land on right.

This is a capture from Google Earth of our route to Parker Pass, with a chart of the elevation changes. I am on that last hump with a few more up and down climbs before the pass.


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On The Dutchman Trail

to Parker Pass

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Our expedition party on Dutchman Trail. Ahead is Parker Pass. Look carefully to pick out two horsemen and three horses packing equipment and supplies. They travelled much faster than my 3 – 4 miles per hour on foot.

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Ahead is Parker Pass, the opening between the two hills in the middle distance. Weaver’s Needle, 3.7 miles distant, at left above the Parker Pass ridge. You can still see my party, ahead. I “zoomed” in for a better view of the party, rapidly pulling ahead and out of sight.

As I top a rise my party is out of sight, more of Weaver’s Needle is visible on the right. The trail falls here before rising again to achieve Parker Pass. Distances on the Lost Dutchman trail are difficult to estimate, visible objectives are much farther then they appear. Constant sun, clear air, difficult terrain conspires against the unprepared leading many into overextending their luck. As a case in point, 37 minutes transpired between the second and third photographs.


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Headed Out

The Beginning

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Dutchman’s trail, starting from First Water Trailhead, meanders through Sonoran Desert hills and washes, gradually climbing about 400 feet before descending into Boulder canyon.

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We were a party of three with five horses: two mounts and three pack. I was on foot, unencumbered by the usual backpack loaded with 80+ pounds of equipment and supplies for an extended wilderness expedition. I used the opportunity to wear a Sony F828 camera, used for the handheld photographs of this series.

The following photograph is our expedition party on First Water Trail. That is Parker Pass, the opening between the two hills in the middle distance. Look carefully to pick out two horsemen and three horses packing equipment and supplied. They travelled much faster than my 3 – 4 miles per hour on foot.

Foregrounds are the “jumping” Cholla, cactus with sharp spines that seem to reach out and grab the unwary. During out trek from Apache Junction to First Water trail head we negotiated forests of this nasty plants.


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