Gila River Outing

We explored the back end of Bill Evans Lake Rd today, after a tip from a fellow birder on how beautiful the canyon, beyond the lake was.  On the drive in we encountered some interesting creatues right along the roadside!

Yep, that's it,  wild turkeys and then  hiking down the road, those strange guys that look like a cross between a racoon and a cat are Coatimundi....first time Kim and I have ever seen them in the wild.

Needless to say, the're pretty fast, so the shots here we snapped at 720mm focal length at an unacceptably low shutter speed, but here's a few more views of these unusual critters.

After climbing over and around mountainous ridge, we are treated to a spectacular panoramic view of the river valley, just north of the canyon.

To say the river was beautiful is a heck of an understatement, what a delight to the eyes!

On the way back to Silver, we took a side road up the five+ mile drive into Saddle Rock Canyon.  Aside from an interesting 4x4 drive, the warm late afternoon colors of the rocks were a treat.  We got back here last night looking on the DeLorme Topo software realized that with a dirt bike or 4x4 (or on foot) we could have gone all the way through to the back of  Gila Burro!