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: