This little guy is a gecko and they're pretty adept at surviving in the hot Sonoran desert. People, on the other hand, are not naturally equipped for this kind of lifestyle and nature sometimes likes to remind us of this fact by killing a few random people from time to time. Yesterday alone, 6 hikers here had to be rescued on 4 different trails and a 7th hiker died of heat stroke.
Today, while I myself was sweating profusely, I came across an incredibly old couple who were more dressed for church than for hiking. They had no water. An hour before that I ran into a young man leading his tiny son around on the wrong trail and they too had no water. I directed them back to the trail they were supposed to be on.
Enough of that. Today I only covered a couple miles since I had to get some other stuff done. I did part of the Blevins Trail and then the Vista Trail, which sits on the inside of the Merkle Trail loop. The Merkle Trail is a wheelchair friendly trail but the Vista is not. I'm glad I brought both trekking poles with me because I needed them both on some parts.
The trail reminded me a little of the Nevada Falls Trail in Yosemite because of the switchbacks, which thankfully were in short supply. There are three separate vista points consisting of two outer tall peaks plus one inner and somewhat lower peak. I skipped the first peak because the trail was less obvious and I really didn't want to be bushwhacking around rattlesnake central, but the last two peaks were directly on the trail itself. If this trail was longer, I would consider it a challenge. I'm a bit ambivalent about the view though. It is nowhere near as impressive as the view on the Pass Mountain Trail when looking toward the Goldfield Mountains, but it looks cool because you can see a full 360°. The ambivalence comes when realizing that 120° of that view is cityscape. It reminds you that you're not as far away from humanity as you think you are when you're a couple hundred feet lower to the ground.
I'll probably go back out tomorrow to see what other snakes and lizards I can find.
Oh, the purples are finally starting to appear!