We drove to White Tank Mountains Regional Park to do a loop hike, starting along the Waddle Trail to Ford Canyon Trail to Willow Canyon Trail to Mesquite Canyon Trail, overall 9 miles with 1,300 ft of gain. The Waddle Trail is a 0.9 mile flat trail. We saw several wildflowers in bloom here, including many brittle bush.
Some of the Buckhorn Cholla were starting to bloom.
The Pencil Cholla had red fruit on them.
On the Ford Canyon Trail, we started to go uphill and passed many interesting rock formations.
There were several steep sections that we scramble up.
The scenery in Ford Canyon is beautiful.
Looking back down Ford Canyon
There were a couple of places with ice on the trail.
Some sections were narrow with a steep drop off on the side.
Lots of lovely rocks
Some parts of the trail were filled with pools of water, which required us to scramble up and over the rocks on the side.
It is nice to see water in the desert.
I thought this rock formation looked like a resting camel.
There was a significant amount of water at the "dam". I worked my way around the pool at the base and scrambled up the wall, watching out for wet footholds with slippery algae in them.
Only to find there were several pools of water in the basins, requiring me to work my way around the pools,
until I was able to get past the many water filled pools.
Looking back from the top of the dam to the uppermost pools.
After passing the dam, the Ford Canyon Trail went up dry washes and regular dirt trail.
More interesting rocks
We continued our loop on the Willow Canyon Trail.
The trail then goes down Mesquite Canyon, back to our trailhead.
One of many saguaros along the trail
One of the spotted lizards we saw today.Some of the wildflowers seen along the trail today:
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