Thursday

The Snowshed Trail in the Chiricahua Mountains

The Snowshed trail #246 is one of those trails that climbs into the high country in the Chiricahua mountains, but the lower part of the trail is fairly gentle as it slowly climbs out of Cave Creek Canyon.  I had the opportunity to walk part of the trail yesterday along with entomologists from the Louisiana State Arthropod Museum who are currently in residence at the Painted Pony Resort on their annual collecting trip.  The goal was to do some collecting as well as recover a trail camera from last years collecting trip.   A warm sunny afternoon with a few scattered clouds and it up the trail from an access point just across the road from the trail to Chiricahua Crystal Cave.  A slow assent brought the group to some open meadows full of junipers and large stands of grasses, mostly Hairy Grama grass.  With the reds rocks in the background the views were typically spectacular.  The trail camera was recovered and with over 3000 images there should be some interesting wildlife captured in images.

Red rock cliffs from the Snowshed trail

A view south back into Cave Creek Canyon

The image above is the same outcrop in the photograph below, taken last year from the McCord trail.  In this instance the view is looking up canyon while the above image is looking down canyon.

Same outcrop as above but viewed from further down canyon.

6 comments:

  1. a trail camera recovered a YEAR later? I'm impressed that the camera was still there and what sort of batteries were in it!? Sounds impressive! Well I just used forms of "impress" twice so guess I need to get out that old Thesaurus!

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  2. The one in the Peloncillos had 13,000 images of blowing grass, poor placement but the one off the Snowshed trail had a little fawn hiding in the rocks for several days, really cool. It was still running when recovered.

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  3. I once interviewed at a place that made batteries for heart pacemakers, Wilson Greatbatch. Sounds like the wildlife camera has such a dependable battery!

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  4. The camera holds 8 double A batteries, nothing fancy. The Bushnell trail cameras are robust and this was the second year for camera placement in the Chiricahua mountains.

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  5. The view further down the canyon looks like a post card view. Or a paint by number painting.

    Just beautiful! Aren't we lucky we live HERE?

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  6. Thank you, it was one of those images I did not know I had until I was home and downloading the images from the camera.

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