LOTS OF ROCK SCRAMBLING

We took the road up to King of Arizona (KofA, hence the name of this wildlife refuge) Mine, and did some hiking out to a smaller mine site. Darell is turning into an inveterate rock climber, and we scaled an awesome dry water tank slope as far as we could (safely) climb.

He's like Spiderman! Only without the tights!

The view down

The view to the left, where we stopped for a snack before we descended back to the mine site

We rested for a bit on huge boulders, taking in the massive vistas before heading back to the jeep.

The tiny (in the photo, anyway) square peak along the furthest ridge is Castle Dome, the highest peak in this area (where we were yesterday)

The view to the left (from my same perch) includes KofA Butte, at the left of the far ridge (and our next stop for hiking)

We next drove out the (very 4-wheel-drive-y) KofA Butte road and hiked up a rocky wash looking for more water tanks. The rocky cliffs, ridges, mountains, and outcroppings were some of the scariest-looking I've ever seen. They're jagged. They're dark. They're pocked, and shattered, and carved out by the elements. Some look like monsters or animals; one looked like Darth Vader. We scrambled up one rocky wash where the rocks and boulders just kept getting bigger, the trees gnarlier, and if there had been a soundtrack, the music would have been ominous indeed. Above this scene a huge cave loomed - I was pretty convinced that a pterodactyl was going to come flying out. Or a big bat, at least. Or, more likely, a hungry mountain lion was happy that two big morsels were walking right in for dinner. Darell wanted to keep climbing. I told him I'd wait below and watch for glowing eyes. As foreboding as it all was, the sandy bottom of the main wash was full of red and yellow blooming shrubs, we saw at least 5 different butterflies, a hummingbird, and 2 chipmunks, and we heard the comforting, constant buzz of bees on blossoms. And we ate peanut butter sandwiches sitting on a smooth white rock. Things aren't quite so scary when you're eating peanut butter sandwiches.