Giant Junipers and Blue Agave

On Sunday we hiked down Red Ridge to the "Gold Mine" and back up Oracle Ridge. I've done it before, and it shouldn't have been too tough, but it kicked our butts. Sabkha came back with many a thorn in body and paw. She also got a large gash in her hind leg, and some weird pokes that turned into pustules on her belly. Yuck. After hanging out in the shack and trying my tongue at some fragmented espanol, we took off on the once-a-two-track for Oracle Ridge. The descent down Red Ridge had been about 3,000 feet in 3.5 miles. Steep! At the bottom we found a beautiful babbling brook, doing it's babbling in a bed of brilliant white granodiorite. Nice! Reef of Rock was visible to the west the entire way down Red Ridge. We contemplated taking a few hundred feet of rope and exploring RoR for a week or so... who needs to fly to Tibet to have an adventure? I blabbed about my failed proposal for summer-weekend-mapping in the Catalinas. My perception is that mucho has not been well-mapped. Catalina geology is fascinating, it has received some attention too-- so you (as a geologist) have a place to start. Good or bad? Contaminated ideas? Anyway, I dreamed of mapping the boundaries of the Catalina Granitic Pluton (which makes up most of the Cats NW of Mt Lemmon, i.e., Samaniengo Ridge and Reef of Rock). Edges, and jointing/veining in the middle. 'Tis the season (or the year), since two consecutive forest fires have largely cleared the nothern slopes of the Catalinas of undergrowth. And trees. Once we huffed up to Oracle Ridge, we finally left the intrusives behind. This was weird, because all the way up the two-track we were seeing coarse-grained weird looking intrusives, altered, feldspar rich (of course). Then on Oracle Ride suddenly we're on an east-dipping sequence of Paleozoic rocks- what the heck? The Dickinson map on the 5th floor of the U of A Geo department seems to indicate it's just a contact. Or rather, it doesn't make it clear what type of contact it is. Is the intrusive a mega-sill? I don't think so, but I'd love to find out. Along the ridge (which I've hiked at least twice before), we eventually passed Marble Peak (several caves there, never been) and came upon the Giant Trees. For a mile or so along the ridge, there are (or were) huge trees, spaced fairly evenly every quarter-mile. They don't grow along the slopes (which are not that steep or rocky). Why? It fascinates me. They're all burned up now, but most are still standing. Their fragrance is lovely. ex-Junipers? Also alongside the path are numerous, perfect blue agave. Wonderful, symmetrical plants! The huff back to the car is harder and longer than expected. As an added bonus, we got to hike about 1.5 miles back up the road toward Ski Valley. I knew it, but it was unpleasant nonetheless. Exhaustion. How can an 8.5-mile hike knock me down like that? [Photos of this trip]