Saguaro Lake

Last Saturday Greg and I decided to visit Saguaro Lake and do the Butcher Jones trail along the edge.  It was a warm day (in my opinion, too warm for hiking in the middle of the day, but we have few cool-enough days left this winter, so we did it anyway!)

We both decided to wear green!

We looked great amongst the foliage.

Here's what I wore.

It's Captain Picard (from Star Trek, The Next Generation).

One of his common sayings in the show is "Make it so."

This shirt says, "Make it SNOW!" and he's wearing a Santa hat and I thought it was hilarious.

Yes, I realize it's March, but I don't have many t-shirts so this one won the prize of getting worn during this lovely hike.

Greg hooked up his dash cam (Christmas present from my brother)

to have some nice footage to play around with.  Also, if anything interesting happened,

we'd have it captured on camera! 

We assumed the required Tonto Pass would be available onsite, but it wasn't.

We went back over 11 winding miles of road to get one.

We didn't risk NOT having a pass!

However that ended up being nice because the gas station had a clean bathroom!

Here is the Tonto Pass!

The trail was called Butcher Jones, and it's named after a doctor and miner in Arizona in the 1800s.

The legend says he did life-saving operations on his kitchen table when necessary.

Right on Saguaro Lake, there's a little recreation area, and that's where the hike begins.

Yay for toilets!

I was happy I had brought my hand sanitizer because there was no soap in the toilets.

 

I am pointing to Canyon Lake, where we have done previous hikes.

Saguaro Lake is up to the left.

There's the lake!

It was pretty busy with stand-up paddle boarders 

and kayakers and other boats.

Here I come!

The beach was sandy, but the ground a little further away from the beach was parched.

Hat and sunglasses in place?  Check!

Mistletoe! 

The trail was pretty busy.

Here's the photos I was taking when Greg took the above photo of me!

The root was sticking right out of the dirt.

The first part of the trail went along the lake shore.

Part of the path was quite close to sheer drop offs - I'm always surprised the government allows us to put ourselves in danger this way . . . 

The plants were pretty.

Here's what happens to a cactus in spring time.

We got to walk through a tunnel of branches.

Can you find Greg in this photo?

It was POPPY weekend!!!

Poppies in the desert pop up whenever they feel like it, and last just a day or two.

Poppies and lupines together!

Can you see me?

I'm wearing green.

Here's a great view of Four Peaks.

Greg has a lovely face for photos.  Ha!

There were lots of flowers blooming along the trail.

There I am!!!

Many boats were zooming around on the lake.

We went around the corner into an area where the crannies in the lake looked like fjords.

This was the prettiest part of the hike.

 We sang songs and stomped our feet loudly because a group coming back on the trail told us they had seen a rattlesnake.  They let him pass and he caused no trouble.  I sort of kind of wanted to see him.  I feel like a phony being a regular desert hiker who's never seen (or even HEARD!) a rattlesnake!

We did see this cute little guy!

Baja Fairy Dusters (what a great name!):

Greg was getting sunburned, so he turned his cap around to block his neck.

He looked how he looked when we were in college.

  

We headed home, drank a LOT of water and tea, and snuggled cats!

Juvy