This year's spring trip to the US is quite short, only twelve days, and to save time we decided to fly. We arrived in Phoenix in the evening of March 10th, picked up our rental car and drove out to Mesa where we enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of our friends Aaron and Evelyn. As usual Aaron was our hiking partner for the first couple of days. Both hikes we did we have done before, and I have written about them at length, so this time I'll just post some photos. There, too, there is nothing new, the landscape and wildflowers the same, with variations in perspective. Yet the wonder remains, no matter how often I have been here and walked these trails: there is always something new to discover, or the old to see affirmed in its beauty.
The first day took us to Massacre Falls in the Superstition Mountains. Last year Johann and had a wrong start and tried in vain to find them, thus had quite an adventurous hike. This time we had no trouble at all and ended up at the thin trickle of water that probably doesn't earn the name fall very often. It was longer than we remembered, with a bit more elevation gain than we remembered, too, and all three of us were quite stiff when we tried to get out of the car coming home to Mesa. There was even talk of shortening the next day's hike and abandoning the Flat Iron plans ...
Here are the Massacre Falls hike photos. Some of the wildflowers - brittlebush, poppies - were about two weeks away from blooming, but there was still an abundance. A very special treat was the sighting of the Gila Monster. It crossed the trail right in front of Johann close to the end of our hike, and I was able to capture it at leisure: it was in no hurry to move away. I kept my distance, however, remembering that these lizards are quite poisonous. This was a good-sized fellow at about 50cm in length.
Globe Mallow 
Fairy Duster
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| Flea Bane |
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| Windflower |
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| The Gila Monster |
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