Backpacking – Page 2 – Michael Stephen Wills Photography

Among the desert wildflowers

Among the grasses, cacti and lichen-covered rocks were many small wildflowers

May 13, 2023May 15, 2023 MichaelStephenWills5 Comments

See Evening on Two Bar Mountain for another chapter of my four-day solo expedition to Reavis Falls in the remote eastern Superstition Wilderness.

Campsite at Morning

On the late-morning of day three I climbed out of the Reavis Creek valley to camp on the slopes of Lime Mountain. There I watched the afternoon progress to evening, a full moon rise in a bright sky and other events featured in this blog. All around my campsite under a lone juniper the mountain side was blooming.

Grasses, Cacti and Flowers

Among the grasses, cacti and lichen-covered rocks were many small wildflowers. I was careful to avoid damaging them and otherwise enjoyed their beauty and plentiful blooms my entire stay. I capture some of them in the early morning light and spent some time identifying them for you.

Desert Hyacinth is a perennial lilly (Liliaceae).

It grows from an onion-like bulb used for food by pioneers and Native Americans. This lilly propagates through this bulb and, also, from seed that forms from these flowers.

The umbel-shaped flowers grow in clusters at the end of long, leafless stalks. Each blossom is an inch across and has six segments that are like petals.

Also called Blue Dicks, bluedicks, Papago lily, purplehead, grassnuts, covena, coveria.

Lupine is a pea, a perennial herb and a favorite of bees. Like other lupines, it improves the soil.
Their root nodules, with the aid of certain bacteria, allow lupines and other legumes to absorb free nitrogen from the air.

A member of the Phlox family (Polemonium), this five (5) petal flower bloomed in small groups on erect stalks with sparse leaves. The stamen heads are notable for a bright blue color.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Evening on Two Bar Mountain

Shadows rising on the canyon walls

May 12, 2023May 13, 2023 MichaelStephenWills4 Comments

Another blog from my four day solo expedition to Reavis Falls in the remote eastern Superstition Wilderness. Here we will descend briefly to the canyon of Reavis Creek, below the Reavis Falls.

My previous blog Two Bar Mountain View featured this same landscape.

Shadows rising on the canyon walls are from Lime Mountain and Castle Dome. In the far canyon, below Two Bar Mountain, is a shadow from the notable cliff and prominence to the right, that rises above Reavis Falls, fall below and out of sight in the canyon.

Here is that prominence from that same day, late afternoon when the sun is just starting to be low enough to throw the cliff into relief. This is a single shot with a canon 200 mm lens. This day I had climbed out of Reavis Creek, up to to this point on the slopes of Lime Mountain. Here I enjoyed an afternoon, evening, night and early morning of the following day.

The second day of the solo expedition, I hiked into the canyon of Reavis Falls from a camp at the canyon mouth. Looking up from the creek this same cliff was prominant against the sky.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Two Bar Mountain Views

Superstition Wilderness

May 11, 2023May 10, 2023 MichaelStephenWills3 Comments

Two Bar Mountain is only part of this view taken the evening of Day Three, my solo expedition to Reavis Falls in the Superstition Wilderness of Arizona.

The view encompasses most of the four day expedition, being the climb into the lower Reavis Creek Canyon from which I camped. I spent one entire day walking up the valley to the falls.

The patches of yellow on the far slopes to the left and into Reavis Valley are Mexican Poppy (Eschscholtzia californica) blooms.

To find lower Reavis Creek Canyon, look for the prominent cliff formation in the very center of the image. Follow the end of the cliff down to a dark shadow. The western canyon wall creates the heavy shadow. As you move to the right, in the image, the shadow becomes wider because the canyon wall becomes higher.

The view also encompasses a 2005 solo expedition over Two Bar Mountain using the Tule and Two Bar Ridge trails into the Superstition Wilderness around Pine Creek. See my blog “Racing the Sun” for an image Two Bar Mountain with the path of (most of) two days of that expedition.

An interesting feature of the full size image (lost in the small-scale reproduction of this blog) is the host of enormous saguaro cactuses marching up the sides of the canyon to the left, thinning out and ending on the western walls of the canyon (the slope directly beneath my viewpoint). Our course, each cactus is perfectly still, casting a huge shadow, and seems very tiny. The nearest is a mile away. We are seeing in this thinning host the lower Sonoran in transition to the upper Sonoran life zone.

All of this in one view from Lime Mountain. Here is another, taken just as the sun set.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Lime Mountain Morning

Superstition Wilderness of Arizona

May 10, 2023May 9, 2023 MichaelStephenWills4 Comments

This post features photographs from my solo expedition to Reavis Falls in a remote corner of the Superstition Wilderness of Arizona.

The morning of Day Four, my solo expedition to Reavis Falls in the Superstition Wilderness of Arizona. I camped on Lime Mountain, off the trail to Reavis Falls. That is Castle Dome behind me. The line sloping up the mountain is the Reavis Trail to Reavis Ranch.

My campsite.

Looking toward Pinyon Mountain and the Arizona Trail (not visible) that fine morning.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

World at our Feet

On Peter’s Mesa

October 16, 2022October 11, 2022 MichaelStephenWills3 Comments

View North / Northwest from Peter’s Mesa. At our feet is a mature Saguaro Cactus towering over Charlebois Canyon, to the right Black Mountain. Bluff Spring Mountain, middle distance, then Black Top Mesa. Flatiron Peak, of the famed Superstition Mountain, is in distance. Photographed from Peter’s Trail on a March afternoon 2008. Superstition Wilderness, Tonto National Forest, Arizona

Bluff Spring Mountain, middle distance, then Black Top Mesa. Flatiron Peak, of the famed Superstition Mountain, is in distance. Photographed from Peter’s Trail on a March afternoon 2008. Superstition Wilderness, Tonto National Forest, Arizona

Click Me for the first post of this series, “Bluff Spring Mountain.

Morning / Evening

Can you see the Needle’s Eye?

October 14, 2022October 10, 2022 MichaelStephenWills2 Comments

The eye of Miner’s Needle is clear in both these South / Southeast views from Peter’s Mesa looking across the Music Canyon.

Many wildflowers, sprinkled like stars through the foreground of the morning photograph with Prickly Pear, Cholla and Saguaro cactus. Beware of “Jumping Cholla”, named for its seeming ability to attack passers-by. Another name, “Hanging Chain Cholla”, is more appropriate. Each chain with many hooked barbs is lightly attached to the branch, ready to snag a ride from unwary hikers.

Light rakes across the landscape in the evening photograph, taken from another vantage point on Peter’s Mesa. Miner’s Needle is four (4) miles away “as the crow flies,” i.e., line of sight distance.

Click Me for the first post of this series, “Blac k Mountain.

Panoramic

Superstition Glory

October 12, 2022October 10, 2022 MichaelStephenWills

View North / Northwest from Peter’s Trail looking back the way we came. Black Mountain on right, Bluff Spring Mountain left with LaBarge Canyon running to the Red Hills center. On a March afternoon 2008.

Click Me for the first post of this series, “Blac k Mountain.

Hear the Music

Roasted Yucca

October 10, 2022October 7, 2022 MichaelStephenWills4 Comments

Here we are climbing Peters Trail to the eponymous mesa and facing East to Music Mountain. Scattered in the brush are desiccated and live Prickly Pear cactus. Poles of young saguaro cactus like randomly placed telephone poles poke up around the lower slopes.

The first published record of Music Mountain is by Ray C. Howland of Mesa Arizona who sent a letter to “Everybody’s Magazine” that appeared in a feature called “Everybody’s Meeting Place: Where writers, readers and the editor gather for informal discussion,” May 1928, Volume 58, Issue 5, page 173. I reproduce Howland’s letter here with minor editing:

“I am in the deserts and mountains of Arizona most of the time. I go into town once each month for mail and provisions. I meet many things as I ramble around, many strange things, things that are beyond my ability to comprehend. One particular was in my mind as I read your printed thought in the back of Everybody’s. Far in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona, in the deepest, most rugged canyon, there are three caves halfway up a great yellow bluff. In these caves are mud dwellings. There are not the cliff-dwelling as found in other parts of Arizona.

The mud walls of these dwellings were made by people with very small hands. The handprints of these ancient masons remain as though they were made yesterday. Just below these caves a beautiful pool of crystal-clear water lies between grassy banks. Tall ghostlike sycamores grow there in great numbers.

I have camped many times beneath those sycamores. It is a beautiful spot. Such a difference between there and the hot desert that lies fifteen miles to the south.! As one lies there, just at twilight, begins the most wonderful music one could imagine. I have never heard music that could compare to it, vague, elusive at times, then again of greater volume. It is my opinion that no living being could record it.

The music is, I believe, beyond description. It seems to take you out of your moral self and transport you back ages and ages, almost to the beginning of things. For the time being one feels as though he were in another world.

I have often tried to solve this little private mystery. I can’t explain it. I can’t even describe it intelligently.

You will probably say as you read this that is is the wind among the pinnacles, caves, trees, etc. that make this wonder phenomenon. It cannot be, for usually there is no breeze in the mountains at twilight. It is still as a tomb except for that music. Besides when the breeze is blowing at any other hours of the day there is no sound.”

Here is a copy of that issue for you to see for yourselves.

In my photographs the bluffs described by Howland are seen clearly in the distance. During our expedition we were never able to visit the caves, though Dave described the location, caves, and dwellings. On Peter’s Mesa are remains of pits where Apaches and Yavapais gathered hearts of agave to roast. We visited a small cave in the side of Peter’s Mesa showing signs of high heat and possibly used for roasting agave.

Click Me for the first post of this series, “Blac k Mountain.

From Music Canyon

Down South

October 8, 2022October 5, 2022 MichaelStephenWills

Dutchman Trail follows the outflow of two springs along the canyon floor: Music Canyon and LaBarge springs. Here we are climbing Peters Trail to the eponymous mesa and facing south / Southeast, looking down on Dutchman Trail.

This is rough country below Bluff Spring Mountain. Stag Horn Cholla cactus is lower right with Prickly Pear cactus scattered in the brush. Poles of young saguaro cactus are scattered around the lower slopes.

Click Me for the first post of this series, “Bluff Spring Mountain.

Black Mountain

Million Dollar View

October 5, 2022October 3, 2022 MichaelStephenWills6 Comments

After a respite among the cool spring waters, we headed up Peters Trail for the top of Peter’s mesa where, for all we knew, there was no water.

In this photograph I face northwest, looking down on Dutchman Trail. The peak, upper center left, is Black Mountain. The cleft of Charlebois Canyon is lower middle right. Stag Horn Cholla cactus is lower right with Prickly Pear cactus scattered in the brush. Poles of young saguaro cactus are scattered around the lower slopes. Look carefully and you can make out the pooled water of our rest stop.