The Salt River, March 6, 2023

Mary Ann and I went to the Salt River last week, and I’m just getting around to doing a post. We had three things in mind: see what wildlife we would run into, check out the wildflowers (specifically fields of California Poppy), and see if there was still snow in the mountains.

We’ve had a lot of rain lately. The lakes on the Salt and Verde Rivers are nearly full, and they are releasing water over the Granite Reef Dam into the Salt River through Phoenix, where it is normally dry (due to distributing water to the canals instead of the river bed). The rain brought snow to the nearby mountains (Four Peaks and the Superstitions), and wildflowers to the desert. The Salt River is relatively close, and we could meet all three goals there without going too far.

We first went to the Granite Reef and Coon Bluff recreation areas. Then we went in search of poppy fields on the Bush Highway north of Saguaro Lake. Our first stop for flowers was the Butcher Jones Off Highway Vehicle (OHV) area just north of Saguaro Lake. There were some nice flowers there. Then we drove further north on Bush Highway. There were a lot of flowers, but we couldn’t access them because there were fences all along the highway, which were added to keep the wild horses off the road. We found some nice views there of Four Peaks and Weaver’s Needle, but without flowers. There were also wild horses that attracted a lot of sightseers, who parked along the highway.