Horton Creek

Back on November 26, 2010, my mom and I did our annual day-after-Thanksgiving hike. We broke from tradition this year (having hiked Picketpost Mountain near Superior for the last several years) and decided to do some of the series of trails along the Mogollon Rim closer to Heber. The one we did was a combination of the Horton Creek Trail, part of the Highline Trail, and the Derrick Trail (about 10 miles total). The weather was great that day, starting off cold (icicles along the creek) but quickly warming up as we got out of the shady mixed conifer forest along Horton Creek. The trail went up the creek to its beginning at Horton Springs, which comes out of two rocky outcroppings. The one that was really gushing water came out of a small cave and in front of it was a slab of rock that you could cross on where you could see the water flowing below the rocks. Pretty cool! Before we left the creek we found a Pacific Wren, which is an uncommon winter resident (and possible breeding species here). The Highline Trail crosses and moves away from the creek just below the springs and heads into the uplands along the base of the Rim. Parts of it included some steeper switchbacks that went up slopes covered entirely with bigtooth maples (only some had a faded yellow/orange color to them). The trail then goes through an interesting mix of higher and lower elevation plants, with beargrass and agaves situated right below Douglas-firs. The Derrick Trail back to the parking lot descended through pinyon-juniper/chaparral mix and lastly into ponderosa pine forest. A beautiful hike all around! Here are various photos:

Views of Horton Creek:

A huge southwestern white pine (Pinus strobiformis) just below the springs. The diameter looked to be 3-3.5 feet at least. In one of the photos my mom posed next to the base of it for a size comparison. I've also included a shot of the cones, which are pretty long in comparison to other pines in the state.

Horton Springs:

The second spring has been dammed up by people for water catchment, although this spring was not gushing as much as the first one we looked at:

At the springs there were lots of horsetails/scouring rushes (Equisetum sp.) and mosses growing. Here is a photo of some of the horsetails, showing the cone-like structure at the top which is called a strobilus. This plant is in the same group as ferns, which are more primitive seed-less plants. The unit of dispersal to grow more organisms is a spore. The strobilus at the top of the horsetail contains the structures that produce spores. Since some horsetails like this lack leaves, photosynthesis for food production occurs in their stem.

Pacific Wren foraging along the creek just below the springs. This wren used to be considered only a western population or subspecies of Winter Wren, but the complex was recently split into Pacific (western population) and Winter (eastern population) Wren.

 View of the Mogollon Rim from Highline Trail, just above Horton Springs:

Here are some of the more shady slopes along the Highline Trail that were covered in bigtooth maples (Acer grandidentatum), a very close relative of the sugar maple (A. saccharinum) that occurs in the eastern U.S. These slopes would definitely be worth checking in late September/early October for fall colors.

Taking a closer look along the trail, we noticed some fungi and lichen growing. In the photos below with orange splotches, these appear to have been mushroom (basidiomycete) fungi that decayed. With the lichen, the cup/bowl-shaped structures protruding above the crusty part are actually part of a fungus. Lichen are mutual associations between fungi and algae (or cyanobacteria), and ascomycete fungi that can have a larger bowl-shaped structure are usually the type of fungus found in a lichen.

More views of the Rim from the Highline and Derrick Trails:

Also along the trail were some neat plants. Here are some photos of pointleaf manzanita (Arctostaphylos pungens), which have smooth red bark and are related to madrones and blueberries. The word manzanita is Spanish for "little apple", which describes the shape of their tiny fruits.

 

Here is an interesting plant we found that I think is a hybrid between Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii) and one of the evergreen species (probably scrub-oak [Q. turbinella] or Palmer oak [Q. palmeri]). Many of the oak species hybridize, which makes identifying them challenging. Some of the hybrids that look like this one have been described as "wavyleaf oak" (Q. undulata):

Here is a shot of an oak I think is a hybrid of some sort:

In the lower elevations we came across several agaves or century-plants (Agave spp.). The basal rosette of leaves grows for 25+ years and then develops a tall flower stalk before subsequently dying. I think they are one of the coolest plants to photograph (especially to use in the foreground of scenery shots).

And some final shots from the Derrick Trail. The late afternoon light made the grass clumps glow along the trail, which looked cool against the dark, gnarled oaks and junipers:

Thanksgiving week

This past week (November 23-28, 2010) I had off of work and school, spending the time over in Heber. Most of the days we went out hiking or birding, although we did have snow a couple of days that kept us inside (except for taking Eva outside to play in the snow). On Tuesday the 23rd we went down the Young Rd. below the Mogollon Rim to a place called Bottle Spring that someone told us about. On the way down, a cool sighting (to me at least) was a lone Chihuahua pine (Pinus leiophylla), a species that mostly occurs just in the "sky island" mountain ranges of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, south into Mexico. I had heard about remnant populations occurring along the Mogollon Rim in central Arizona, but this was the first time I had seen one here. They are a cool species in that, besides having serotinous or partially-serotinous cones (those that require intense heat or smoke from fires to open up and release seeds), Chihuahua pine is one of only a few pine species in the world that can sprout new stems from the trunk after a fire. Their cones are very tiny in comparison to the common ponderosa pine and remain on the tree for a long time. Here are a couple of pics:

At Bottle Spring we walked around the forest a bit checking out the area. Right off the bat we came across one of the largest mixed flocks of birds we had ever seen, hanging out in a clump of ponderosa pines and drinking from a small puddle along the old logging road. There were at least 40 Red Crossbills, 20 Cassin's Finches, 20 Ruby-crowned Kinglets, all three nuthatch species (including one Red-breasted), lots of Dark-eyed Juncos, a few Olive Warblers, Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, and a Steller's Jay imitating a hawk's screams. Later on we spotted a beautiful rufous-morph Red-tailed Hawk which I was able to snap a quick photo of:

Later that evening when we were back in Heber, we just happened to glance out the window and see a fairly intense sunset (the pictures only capture part of it though):

 

On Wednesday night after finishing a paper up via email with my group for the ocotillo project for my field ecology class (see other posts), I checked out the windows at around 11:00pm and saw it was snowing outside. This was funny because earlier that evening when I walked Eva around the neighborhood it did not really look like it was going to snow at all. The next morning we had around an inch on the ground in places that quickly melted through the rest of the day. It was nice to have snow on Thanksgiving though. Here are some shots from the yard, including snow on our banana yucca (Yucca baccata):

 

The day after Thanksgiving my mom and I broke from tradition and decided to hike a 10-mile loop around Horton Creek just below the Rim, instead of our usual Picketpost Mountain hike (see other post for pictures from this hike). The next day we all did a day trip over to the White Mountains in eastern Arizona to take Eva out to the snow and to check out the birds over there. Highlight birds included Northern Shrike, Snow Goose, Gray Jay, Common Yellowthroat, and Belted Kingfisher (the last two species common at other times of year, but rare this late in the fall). Despite the good bird sightings, we were depressed for the rest of the day after visiting Big Lake, where we found 8 Western Grebes stuck in the ice. One was already dead and being consumed by a crow (based on how bloody and ripped up it was, I suspect the Bald Eagles are also feasting on the grebes and ducks that get stuck in the ice). The other 7 grebes were still alive, but could only move their necks. One was even pathetically calling out. I think the birds just got caught unaware when the temperature plummeted really fast one of the previous nights. They probably fell asleep and woke up to find themselves trapped. Even though every thing dies someday, that is a horrible way to go.

On a lighter note, here are some shots of Eva going bonkers in the snow at Gabaldon Campground (1st picture at lower elevation Wenima Wildlife Area, which also had a few patches of snow):