AZ Trail - Passage 3 Middle 5 Miles

Dec16, 2015; Don & Suzanne; 10.5 roundtrip
(Click on a thumbnail to see a larger picture)
Pictures by Don & Suzanne
Music: "Silver Bells," by Mannheim Steamroller (OK, it's only 5 days until Christmas)

1 Location of this hike in southern Arizona - we're getting closer to the border with each hike.	2 We hiked the green track this week, after driving Red Rock Canyon Road to the access point	3 A sign along the private part of Red Rock Canyon Road before it became a public forest road. I bet Suzanne that we could make it across, especially in the Xterror. I won, but it was close.	4 Now we're on the forest service part of the road - some of the road is in washes.
5 Why, it's a nice wide expressway	6	7 Where the AZ Trail crosses the forest road. We parked there	8 The tail heads east and south
9 Another gate.	10 Across a wash is a hill that has lots of deep red in it.	11 Ahead we spot a well and water storage tanks for cattle. Must be the Red Bank Well.	12 We start seeing these yellow balls on the ground. They are all over and are about the size of baseballs
13 According to Suzanne, these are Buffalo Gourds, a member of the squash family.	14 They're edible when young, but bitter when very mature. We didn't sample.	15 This is the well head. It's been converted from a wind-mill-powered mechanical pump to solar-powered electrical submersable pump.	16 THe rotary-horizontal-axis impeller still functioned (i.e., it turned in the wind). But it was hooked to nothing. One form of renewable energy gives way to another form of renewable energy.
17 A cairn - must have been constructed by a type-A personality	18 A panorama taken as we on down the trail. Note the red in the hill - must be where the well (Red Bank Well) gets its name	19 Really? Didn't notice anything different here	20 We spot a fixer-upper
21 Will take a lot of work	22 OK	23 Another well along the trail. The original windmill had been dismantled on this one. It's now solar photovoltaic powered.	24 An old animal feeder box, near where we had a snack and then turned around to head back.
25 Having been overcst since we drove in on Red Rock Canyon Road, the skies finally begin to clear as we get back close to the car.