On this part of my journey on the Arizona Trail, I was joined by my long time friend C0rinne Geertsen . She rode Ron Silverthorn's mule Rosie .
After a VERY windy camp on a ridge northeast of Oracle, Dick drove us to the trailhead on Tiger Mine Rd. Tiger Mine Rd. goes N off AZ highway 77 which is the highway between Oracle and Mammoth on the San Pedro river . Not much room for a horse trailer rig but enough to be safe .
The trail starts on a ridge and, looking North, it seems as if the whole state of Arizona is laid out in front of you . The panorama goes on forever with ridges fading lighter and lighter into the distance .
There were still many wildflowers still in bloom but I had never seen 7 blooms from a seemingly single stem of Mariposa Lily .
With good grades, the trail leads up over the ridges and down into the sandy drainages between them . A cottonwood tree or dense grass shows the occasional presence of water . The wind got to be quite strong on the ridge tops .
We rode as far as the Pipeline Rd. before we stopped for lunch . ( Having spent some time last year on the Pipeline Rd., I did not want to ride any more of it .)
Things do look different on the return trip, now we were mostly looking up as we climbed back toward the TH where Dick was waiting . We again passed a huge bull that we had named Blondie . He was still laying under the same tree as when we passed him going out .
Billy sets a good pace .
Our next camp would be at the inviting sounding place of Yellowjacket Well in Bloodsucker Wash .
Actually it was a rather nice campsite with a huge, ancient mesquite tree for shade and clean sand for our camp . The wind died down at sunset . This was the second night we built the campfire in the road so as to have safe weed free place for it . ( It became a tradition to have it in the road .) A large, vocal bull strolled through camp at 1 AM .
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