Another Fun Filled Weekend In Arizona

All photos taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8

Our daughter got some time off work so we took her on one of our quad rides and we slipped in a couple of geocaches. Our friend Chuck was nice enough to let our daughter ride with him.

The first geocache we went to was hidden in the small town of Christopher Creek, Arizona. This cache was on the opposite side of the creek so we had to cross it on three logs that were laid across the creek. At one point we had to jump from the logs over to a small patch of grass. I have really short legs so that didn't work so well with me. I got my feet soaked and we had just begun the day. No big deal, I recovered and we found the cache and got to visit a very beautiful area.

The second geocache was hidden in an area where we wanted to ride our quads. We took the 1316 road just past the Sharp Creek Campground and offloaded our quads in one of our favorite camping spots. The second cache wasn't too hard to find and it was only a couple hundred feet off the dirt road. Now that's the kind of caches I like!

After finding the second cache we continued on the dirt road that goes in a huge loop around Christopher Mountain and eventually ends up back to where we parked the truck.

On our way around we stopped at a couple of wildlife "drinkers". These tanks take in rainwater and feed it to a smaller concrete tank down the hill for the animals to drink from. Robert was hoping to find some elk sheds in these areas.

We also stopped at a cattle pond to look for sheds and found a tree stand instead. And, of course, Robert had to play. LOL.

When we were finished playing we headed on around the hill. In the lower areas we ran across several little brooks. It was nice to see the green grasses starting to grow after the winter deadness.

The drive up was beautiful and the trail was fairly nice. We did have problems with quite a few toppled trees that we either had to move or drive around.

As we went up the mountain we had plenty of gorgeous views of the surrounding mountains.

I couldn't believe the amount of toppled trees that we found lying across the road or elsewhere. This one was really huge.

As we were driving up towards the top I happened to look to the left of us and there, lying on the ground was an elk shed. I yelled to Robert to stop and get it quick; as if something was going to grab it and haul it away within seconds.  He was so excited that we finally found one that wasn't already bleached by the sun or that hadn't been gnawed on by animals.  For the rest of the day the antler was displayed as a kind of hood ornament for the front of the quad.

After spending about 20 minutes in the area looking for any more sheds we continued on up the mountain.

We actually ran into a small herd of elk. I got pictures but you can just barely see them because they were in the trees. We also saw a couple of Mule deer but they were too quick to get shots of.

At the top we decided to stop and have lunch as Robert warmed his hands over the fire. Ha! He's just plain goofy!

We found lots of things to take pictures of on Christopher Mountain. The huge juniper trees here are just "knotty" and their arms twist and turn in all kinds of directions.

After lunch we headed back to the truck, loaded up the quads and headed across highway 260 to the 284 road to find some more geocaches.

The third cache was a little less than a mile hike on a gradual incline the whole way. I'm not much of a hiker to begin with so this one really wore me out. I guess I need to do this more often. This picture is of a corral that is near the parking area to the See Canyon trailhead.

We did have some awesome views of this end of Christopher Creek. Again we had to cross the creek via logs laid across but it was well worth it. Oh yeah, this time I didn't get wet.

These are the views we had from the site of the third cache. Beautiful.

The guys wanted to continue up the mountain about another half mile to the fourth cache so Marie and I waited back down on the trail. And of course, I found weird things to take pictures of including this (second picture) rarely seen Alligator Asp; very dangerous if you get too close to that mouth. Ha!

We waited for quite a while for the guys because the fourth cache was so well hidden that they took forever trying to find it. Whoever hid that cache did a really good job of it.

We had a really awesome day, got a lot of exercise, and we managed to get four caches but it was time to go home and keel over for the rest of the weekend.

When we got home and I walked up onto my porch, I had a surprise waiting for me there. It was a late birthday present from my daughter.  My Birthday Present