Vineyard Trail

 

The Vineyard trail is a section of the Arizona Trail that runs from the Mexican border up to Utah.  We hiked down a portion of the Vineyard trail when we drove up to the Mill Ridge trailhead, and today we tackled it from the bottom up.

Here's Leo at the start of the trail right by the bridge.

A little further up the trail.

Some spectacular views up here of the Jetson-like Bridge below.

And the Roosevelt dam.  

The Roosevelt dam was completed in 1911 and is featured on the Arizona State Crest because it was so important to the development of the state.  

We hiked until we got a view of Apache lake, then turned around.  The trail continues much further on till it reaches the Mill Ridge trailhead.

Leo in amongst the flowers

We had views of the Four Peaks mountains.

No shortage of Saguaros.

Lots of blue dicks blooming here.  We saw these as well at Oregon Pipe, where they were more blue than these.

 

Later that day when we took our 5 pm bird walk, Leo photographed this great-tailed grackle looking rather sculptural.