Day: March 19, 2017

The weather was not so great, but we learned a lot at the museum











Leilani and Andy made a snowman right outside the museum

We photographed the squirrel 2 days in a row


The Northern Flicker










David captured some of the photo / visual weirdness of the rest of us :-)

We spent the morning prepping sauerkraut and potatoes for dinner, Rosemary came over for more sewing with Leilani, then we (Sonja and Andy) went hiking with Michel and Xavier. We had planned to do a different Cathedral Peak trailhead, but traffic was so bad they couldn’t drive north, so we drove south to meet them and did exactly the same hike as 2 years ago. Which was fortunate because it was a really nice hike along the stream then up on the rocks.

We took a similar picture behind Cathedral Rock 2 years ago:

After the stream and hiking up a little gully, we got to the rocks and the climb up to the gap between the peaks:

It was crowded at the gap, so we continued to the less crowded second gap…

…with views of Courthouse Butte in the distance:

It was getting late, but that never stopped us from continuing on to the deserted 3rd gap with more views:

We saw this crack last time, but this time, I figured out how to climb up into it, so I did:

By now it was getting later, and the sun was starting to set back at the first gap. Andy took 2 pictures of the rocks and sky, and Sonja did an HDR composition in ye olde photoshoppe:

On the way down, there were beautiful sunset colors on the rocks to the east:

And then as we went around the main formation and down the gully again, we caught an incredible Arizona sunset (and took too many photos):

From the same spot as the first picture on this post, with less light:

We were running late, and it was almost dark, but we could still see the trail. Except under the trees when we all turned on our phone flashlights. Jim and Rosemary, David, and Leilani were waiting for us at Michel’s house, and we heated up our sauerkraut dinner. Michel and Xavier ran out to get wine and bread, and Andy ran back to Poco Diablo to get the potatoes he forgot to pack. But in the end, we had a delicious Austrian sauerkraut dinner and a nice evening at Michel’s house.