The desert leading toward The Flatiron was alive with greenery and flowers. in the beginning of March. I am guessing it isn't quite as green now.

 

Kirk and i have never hiked the desert before. On the Oregon PCT, we hiked through a flat, dry basin called the Oregon Desert where scrawny lodgepole pines provide a little shade. But had we not read it in our guidebook, we wouldn't have called it a desert. 

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Here in Arizona, surrounded by Saguaros, we definitely knew we were in a different kind of land, where every shrub wears a protective garment of spikes and is described by words like "hostile beauty."

 

We look forward to returning to hike The Flatiron when we aren't thwarted by blinding rain. 

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I don't want to get ahead of myself as we are still shutdown here in Oregon. But as soon as those trails open back up...

 

HAPPY HIKING.

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