Saturday we explored the Palo Verde Mine. It is a few digs a couple of miles northeast of Saddle Mountain.
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| Entrance to one of the digs |
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| Foundations |
We walked about a mile along the road going south east toward the
mountain. Then we drove up a couple of the other roads where people boondock
on the north side of the mountain.
Then we decided to see where Courthouse Road, the east-west road past the mountain, goes heading west. We didn't know why it is called Courthouse, because there isn't much population in the area. We drove 15 miles west toward a hill at the end of the road. There are a lot of irrigated fields along the way. One field had enough water in it to attract about 10 egrets. Odd to see them in a little wet spot that is surrounded by desert.
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| Egrets |
Further down the road we saw a few cows. The surprising thing was that there were two dead cows in the ditch. At the end of the road (at milepost 0) we came to the information signs for the Eagletail Mountains Wilderness. About 5 miles straight ahead was Courthouse Rock.
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| Courthouse Rock |
We could see more clearly how Saddle Mountain got its name coming back toward it.
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| Saddle Mountain from the west |
Tuesday we went to South Mountain Park straight south of downtown Phoenix. At 16000 acres, it is one of the largest municipal parks in the world. It has over 51 miles of trails
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| Near the entrance of South Mountain Park |
Our destination in the park was Max Delta Mine, which Joan had found on the internet. It was about 3/4 mile walk from a small parking lot to the mine.
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| Max Delta foundations |
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| Downtown Phoenix from Max Delta |
Thursday afternoon 40 RV's came into the park for a
Recreational Vehicles Club of Sun City West rally. All of them parked in the rows behind us. Sun City West is a golf destination in the northwest corner of Phoenix, so they haven't come very far.
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