On Thursday, we drove north and west to Lake Pleasant Regional Park. We went to the Nature Center and learned about the creation of Lake Pleasant as part of the Central Arizona Project to bring water to Phoenix and Tucson.
Although there were only a handful of visitors, I can see why thousands of people come during weekends, especially Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor weekends.
Just outside the Nature center, they have a fenced off area where a desert tortoise lives. He was just peeking out of his home when one of the park rangers came out to feed him.
We then set off to hike the Roadrunner Trail which parallels the lake shore. Even though sunny and hot, the breezes off the lake made the hike pleasant. We came across this one spot where we learned that to prevent water from seeping into the ground, they pump materials into the bedrock to seal the bottom of the lake and allow the water to move south to Phoenix and Tucson. There are these covered pipes where they can add material as needed.
As we continued on, we came across a two room Hohokam hilltop lookout that is now right near the shore.
After covering about three miles, we drove to a day use area (there are also many places for camping, but day use people cannot enter those sections) that had a large covered area with four picnic tables, as well as many individually covered tables. We had our picnic lunch, then drove out of the park and north to the other park entrance where we had entered several years ago for a hike. We hiked for a bit, covering a little over a mile, but with no shade and being away from the shore, it was too hot to continue, so we headed home. We had hoped to see some of the wild burros, but did not see any in the park. As luck would have it, as we were driving back out to the main road, we did see two wild burros on the side of the road. One was dark brown and the larger one was light brown, almost white.
Another good day hiking in Arizona.
Although there were only a handful of visitors, I can see why thousands of people come during weekends, especially Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor weekends.
Just outside the Nature center, they have a fenced off area where a desert tortoise lives. He was just peeking out of his home when one of the park rangers came out to feed him.
We then set off to hike the Roadrunner Trail which parallels the lake shore. Even though sunny and hot, the breezes off the lake made the hike pleasant. We came across this one spot where we learned that to prevent water from seeping into the ground, they pump materials into the bedrock to seal the bottom of the lake and allow the water to move south to Phoenix and Tucson. There are these covered pipes where they can add material as needed.
As we continued on, we came across a two room Hohokam hilltop lookout that is now right near the shore.
After covering about three miles, we drove to a day use area (there are also many places for camping, but day use people cannot enter those sections) that had a large covered area with four picnic tables, as well as many individually covered tables. We had our picnic lunch, then drove out of the park and north to the other park entrance where we had entered several years ago for a hike. We hiked for a bit, covering a little over a mile, but with no shade and being away from the shore, it was too hot to continue, so we headed home. We had hoped to see some of the wild burros, but did not see any in the park. As luck would have it, as we were driving back out to the main road, we did see two wild burros on the side of the road. One was dark brown and the larger one was light brown, almost white.
Another good day hiking in Arizona.
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