White Tank Mtns - return trip

The White Tank Mountains Regional Park is one of many in Arizona's Maricopa County. Vast in size and rugged in terrain, it's an ideal park for hiking of all levels.

Petroglyyphs can be found in several rocks along the Waterfall Trail.

The most popular hike and probably the highlight of the park is the Waterfall Trail and its pool at the end of the trail. Not always is it filled with water, but even if it's not, it's still a pretty cool hike into a shallow box canyon. It's also one of the easiest trails in the park and is partially paved.

Supposedly rock climbers manage to clamber up the waterfall rock when it's dry. There are a couple other pools higher up.

A windmill on the very short (.02-mile) Wildlife Trail can be seen from the main road. Unless one likes to see windmills up close, there's no reason to hike this trail.

Another easy but pretty hike is the .09-mile Gray Fox Trail. The remaining pictures were taken there.

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On yet another hike, a group of us started out on the Black Rock Long Loop which linked up with the prettier half of the Waterfall Trail. Another easy trail with lots of petroglyphs along the way. Total hike was around three miles.

Upon leaving the park we saw this young coyote practically begging for food from passing cars. Obviously, it has been fed by humans and was hoping for more hand-outs. Signs are posted in the park to not feed the wildlife. Please, please obey the signs. It's for the good of the animals. Not only does human food not contain the nutrients needed, but once fed, animals can get aggressive toward humans if NOT fed. Also, they can't distinguish wrappers and plastic that had food in them. And, lastly, this photo is evidence that they're not afraid of passing cars...all because they've been "domesticated" by people not knowledgable of the dangers of feeding them. Please, for their own sake, let wildlife remain wildlife.

No doubt I take a picture of this scene everytime I visit the park. And each time I see its beauty for the first time. It must be one of my favorite scenes in the whole park., taken from the waterfall trail.

The closest image of this grasshopper I could find online is the Rhammatocerus viatorius, which means very little to us outside the world of acridology. I am not identifying this species as such.