Last month, while hiking on the Lava Flow Trail, John's mother (Erika) told us about a rare phenomenon known as the crested saguaro.  Curious to know more about them, John decided to Google "crested saguaros" to see what he could find out about them.  What we learned is that there are about four hundred crested saguaros located within the state, twenty-five of which lie within the boundaries of Saguaro National Park near Tucson.  Closer to home, there are several located at the Desert Botanical Garden, as well as two along the Cave Creek Trail #4, near Seven Springs.

That gave John an idea.  Since John's parents were getting ready to retire and take off in their motor home for several months, John thought it would be a nice parting gift to take Erika on a hike to look for the crested saguaros along the Cave Creek Trail.  Erika, of course, graciously accepted the offer.

Our hiking party grew from four to five when Mary and her best friend Zoey began conspiring about having a sleep-over (as they did every week).  We told them that it was okay with us, but as long as Zoey was able to go hiking with us on Saturday morning.  Her parents agreed, so that Friday night, Zoey spent the night at our house.

And Saturday morning, bright and early, we went hiking!

Okay, maybe it wasn't THAT bright and early.  After all, we didn't get the giggling to stop until after 9:00, so getting the girls up early was a little difficult.  Not impossible...just a little difficult.  Getting them motivated was a bit difficult, too; we had to tell them a couple of times to get dressed, because all they wanted to do was play Littlest Pet Shop.  Eventually, we managed to get them going, so that we could get out of the house by 7:30 that morning.

Girls!  And just think: four and a half years until they become teen-aged girls.  Yes, I'm already cringing at the thought.

After stopping to pick up Erika at her house, we started our long drive to the Seven Springs Recreation Area, where we would begin our hike on the Cave Creek Trail #4.  To get there, we took Cave Creek Road north, through the towns of Cave Creek and Carefree, then continued on until the road turned to dirt and became FR 25.  Along the way, we stopped at the usual place - the Circle K in Cave Creek - to buy our Tonto Pass, so that we could legally park at the trailhead. 

It took us a little over an hour to drive to the trailhead.  When we arrived, we geared up the giggling girls (and ourselves) in preparation for our four or five mile hike.  In addition to our water and snacks, we also equipped ourselves with both of our new cameras - a Nikon P80 (a point-and-shoot with an 18X optical zoom and a 3X digital zoom) and a Nikon D80 (a digital SLR) - and the GPS, into which John had downloaded the approximate coordinates of the crested saguaros.  No matter what, we were going to find one of those rare saguaros, and we were going to bring back pictures to prove that we had seen them.

We stepped off onto the trail around 9:00 a.m.  Almost immediately, the girls began to pretend that they were living in the pioneer days and that they were the Ingalls girls from the Little House on the Prairie books.  (Three guesses what they were studying in school.)  Whatever kept them hiking!

A half of a mile later, we came to the point where the trail crossed the road and began its descent towards the creek.  Just before the trail reached the creek, it went up and over a fence-line by way of a set of steps.  We stopped there to look for a geocache that was supposed to be hidden there, but when we couldn't find it, we decided to move on.

Once on the other side of the fence, the trail flattened out and became a very pleasant walk along Cave Creek.  I have always enjoyed this part of the hike, because it is quite beautiful - especially in the spring, when everything is green.  Although much of the area had been burned during the Cave Creek Complex Fire of June 2005, this section of the trail had not been touched and was still just as beautiful as it had been the first time we ever hiked there.

The girls really enjoyed the trail, too, because there were so many interesting things to see and collect.  Along the way, they found pieces of twisted metal that had come off of the fence and gathered ten or twelve of them.  They loved standing in the hollow of the burned sycamore trees and posing for pictures.  And they had fun looking for worms and moss and rocks and spider webs.  They were great little explorers.

As we hiked, John and I told stories about our last adventure on the Cave Creek Trail.  We had backpacked there and camped underneath a gigantic sycamore tree.  The day had started out warm enough, but overnight, temperatures dropped below freezing (it was January, after all).  Our old sleeping bags did nothing to keep us warm.  That convinced us that it was time to buy new bags; we bought them a month later.

With about a mile to go, we stopped to take a break on the grassy bank of a drainage.  While the girls rested and munched on blackberries and granola bars, I wandered over to a nearby shrub, because I had spied something white tangled in the limbs.  Upon closer inspection, I discovered that it was a white Ralph Lauren sweater, and judging by its appearance, it had not been there very long.  I was certain that it had been left there by someone who was hiking ahead of us, so I left it there for that person to retrieve on the way out.

Next to the shrub, I found a perfectly beautiful spider's web, over a hole in the ground; the strands of the web were covered with dew.  I called the others over to take a look at it; the girls were fascinated by it, and John practiced taking macro shots of it with the SLR.

A few hundred feet up the trail, we arrived at the creek crossing.  The waters in the creek were a little high so John had to help the girls across, though Zoey still got her shoes wet.  (She later told her mother that she wanted hiking boots so that she could go hiking with Mary more often.) 

On the other side of the creek, the trail continued on, along a ridgeline above the creek.  This was the furthest that we had ever hiked on the Cave Creek Trail.  Usually, we weren't able to get to the creek crossing; one time we did make it that far, but we ended up turning around after only a 100 feet on the other side.  (There was that one time when John attempted to do a loop hike and he made it further than that, but he managed to injure his knee and had to be rescued by me at the Spur Cross Trailhead.  That's a totally different story and one that never made it to this blog...though it was a good one!)

As we climbed the ridgeline, we came across several young people wearing orange jumpsuits with Coconino Forest Service badges; they were performing trail maintenance.  We stopped to talk to several of them along the way and thanked them for the job that they were doing, because without them, we wouldn't have these beautiful trails to hike.  We asked a couple of them if they knew anything about the crested saguaros located along that stretch of the trail; none of them had ever seen a crested saguaro, so Erika told them what she knew about them.

About a quarter of a mile up the trail from the workers, we found the first crested saguaro!  It was across the canyon, so we weren't able to hike right up to it, but it wasn't so far away that it wasn't distinct.  We were able to get a good picture of it with the Nikon P80, which had the good zoom lens. 

This particular crested saguaro had a "crown" on it - a series of buds that formed a circular pattern on its top.  Seeing this oddity made me curious as to what could cause something like this to happen.  From what we had read on the internet, scientists weren't quite sure how this phenomenon happened.  Some speculated it could be caused by some sort of genetic mutation; others believe that it was the result of a lightning strike.  Both seemed like viable options.  Whatever the cause, though, it was an interesting sight, and all of us - especially Erika - were excited to have found one in the wild.

According to the information that John had found, there was supposed to be another crested saguaro a half-mile ahead; this was the one that he had marked on the GPS.  We decided to try to hike to it, in hopes that we could see it; but a quarter of a mile later, we discovered that the trail was just going to lead us downhill, towards Cave Creek.  This would not have been a big deal for us, had it been earlier in the day; but, as it was lunchtime, we decided to make that our turn-around point for the day. 

Being high up on the ridgeline meant that there weren't a whole lot of options for places to eat lunch.  Next to the creek (about fifty feet below us), however, there was a beautiful grassy bench that would be perfect...if we could get down there.  Leave it to John to find just that route; of course, he took us cross-country down the hill, on a path that wasn't so steep, towards the bench.  Aside from the loose rocks, it was a decent route; and we reached the bottom in just a few minutes.

Getting back out of there was another story.  Instead of using the same route we had taken to climb down the hill, John decided that it would be a little bit easier to take the kids up a drainage.  The drainage was not nearly as steep, and it gave Mary the chance to do what she loved to do: rock-climb!  Both she and John - mountain goats that they are - maneuvered up the drainage with hardly any trouble at all.  For them, it would have been a completely effortless climb, had it not been for my favorite non-native plant - the cat-claw mimosa - choking the path.  All of us got stuck by the thorny weed on the way up; just another reminder of why I hate those things!

At the top of the drainage, we found ourselves back on the trail again, and from there, we kept hiking.  We passed by the construction workers again and told them about the crested saguaro that we had found.  It was then that we noticed that there were other hikers behind us - a man, a woman, and a trio of dogs.  Perhaps the white sweater belonged to him?

The couple and their dogs didn't catch up to us until we reached the creek crossing; we had just finished making our way across when we heard them.  At first, it sounded like they were just having a loud conversation; then, we realized that they were yelling at each other.  We weren't sure what the argument was about, but we could tell that the woman was quite ticked off at the man - apparently, he had done something that caused him to be in a lot of trouble.  No matter what he did to try to shut her up - even pointing out that there were people ahead of them - she just got madder and yelled louder.  It was very entertaining.

About ten minutes later, we reached the grassy spot where we had taken a break earlier and decided that it was time to take another breather, before hiking that last mile out.  John started playing with the camera and took a picture of himself...upside down.  It was very amusing.

Even more amusing was what happened next.  The fighting couple had caught up to us, and they were still arguing!  Still!  And without the sound of the creek to mute her voice (partially), she was even louder.  As he stopped to retrieve his sweater from the shrub, he told her to stop yelling, because there were people ahead and she was embarrassing them; that just made her angrier, and she yelled louder.  "I don't care, LEWIS!  You need to learn to listen!"

And as they passed us by, led by their three dogs, she continued to yell and scream at Lewis, completely unaware that her embarrassing actions were going to put her into the "Naked in the Woods" blog.

Some people just don't learn...

We let Lewis and his wife get further ahead of us; then, we got up and kept hiking.  Everything was going great as we made our way along, until we made it to the steps that took us up and over the fence.  Once again, we stopped to look for the geocache but had to abandon our search when about thirty boy scouts hiked by us. 

The final half-mile seemed to be the longest half-mile.  The rest of the hike had gone very well, but suddenly, Mary had reached her limit.  Tired and cranky, Mary melted down, and it took everything in our power to get her back to the car.  What was funny about that, though, was that, even over Mary's whimpering, we were able to hear Lewis' wife, who was STILL yelling at him at the trailhead! 

We finally arrived at the trailhead around 1:30 p.m.; and, after piling the tired kids into the 4Runner, we immediately started back towards civilization, so that we could get Zoey home to her family...and so that Mary could take a little nap to refresh.

On the way home, of course, we stopped for a little treat for the girls - and a treat for the adults, too - at our favorite restaurant in Carefree: The Bad Donkey.  The Bad Donkey is a great pizza and sub shop that also has its own microbrew, called Bad Donkey P (the "P" stands for "Premium").  It's an excellent wheat beer (like a Heffenweizen) with a clever name.  Next door to The Bad Donkey is the Dinky Donkey, an ice cream shop with a good selection of premium ice creams.  We had never been in the ice cream shop before and thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to give it a try.  We each had a cup of ice cream, and each adult had a Bad Donkey P to go with it!

We finally arrived in town around 3:00 p.m.  After dropping Erika off at her house - and Zoey off at hers - we returned home and relaxed.  Another day's adventure was over....

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