Al's travels: 2 weeks in AZ

Tucson was a blast. It was great getting to hang out with someone who knew a bunch of cool places that I never would have found on my own. Mark was a fantastic tour guide and one of the first days I was there he took me to Tanque Verde Falls. There is a trail leading to the lower falls area (a good distance below the main 75 foot waterfall). From there you're supposed to hike farther up into the canyon to reach the main falls. Unfortunately the water level was so high that there was no way to make the hike up the canyon without getting really wet (and it wasn't very warm out). We drove around a little and found an unmarked trail from the road leading down to about where we thought the waterfall should be, we hoped to at least get a look at it.

We climbed a little ways down the trail and were happy to find a nice rock shelf jutting out from the canyon that gave us a nice view of the falls on one side and the rainstorm over Tucson on the other

The falls was a long way down (that shot was taken with a 100mm lens on a 1.5 crop factor DSLR) but it seemed a waste to come all this way without actually getting to it. It looked nearly impossible to make the climb down but I thought I'd go down a little farther to check it out and see if their was a possible way to get to the falls. Mark volunteered to stay behind and document my demise with the camera.

That's me just to the left of center at the bottom.

I got about 2/3 of the way down to the falls when I got around an outcropping of rocks that had been blocking our view and realized it was possible to get to the falls. I climbed back up to our ledge to get my camera and to try and convince Mark (along with his bad back) to come all the way down with me. It took a little convincing but it turns out Mark isn't quite the fuckin' pussy he made himself out to be earlier. It was a bit of a hairy descent but we scrambled our way down and after constructing a bridge were rewarded by getting right into the spray of the waterfall. This was probably the best part of my trip. Not only because it was an impressive sight but because of what was needed to actually get there and back.

Thank goodness for long arms and wide lenses

After a rest at the bottom we headed back up the canyon where we happened upon this little fellow.

He blended in real well (as you can tell). Mark said it was a Canyon Frog and that they used to see them all the time; but he hadn't run across one in a long time.

We made it back up to the top in one piece and after one more triumphant picture with the falls in the background it was time for the next adventure. This one is another of those color/B&W dilemmas so you can choose again.

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