Date: December 25, 2021
Place: Sara Park, Lake Havasu City, Arizona
Coordinates: 34.443263, -114.265157
Length: 6.4 miles
Level: moderately strenuous
Lake Havasu is a large reservoir, a long and swollen strip of the Colorado River created by the Parker Dam. Lake Havasu City is a small town on the eastern shore of the lake with a vast, beautiful desert surrounding it and a nice selection of parks and wildlife refuges along the lake shores. We've been there on the winter break of 2018 when we experienced there the worst winter storm that they've had in thirty years. When California closed down during the pandemic, Pappa Quail suggested going to Lake Havasu City - now that the winter was much milder.
We arrived at Lake Havasu City on Christmas Eve after a brief stop at the Providence Mountains State Recreation Area in the Mojave Desert Preserve. Christmas Day found us tired and slow to start. It was a beautiful, cool and sunny day. We started the day touring around the downtown of Lake Havasu City, primarily the Lake Havasu Island, at the base of the London Bridge, (no mistake here, more about that bridge in a future post) and the holiday decorated plaza.
After lunch we decided to go on a real hike. Of all the options we had nearby, we selected going to Sara Park, located just south of town.
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| Our hike as captured by my GPS |
Jagged ridges of reddish buttes stood between us and Lake Havasu. We couldn't see the water from where we were, but that was where we were headed.
The first part of the trail is on a wash bed. We were walking on soft gravel where the footprints of numerous hikers that hiked there before us was etched until the next hiker reshaped them.
The vegetation along the wash was a typical desert vegetation. 2021 was a drought year, and it was quite apparent that the area hasn't experienced any recent significant precipitation.
Still, there were plenty of shrubs and bushes growing inside the wash or on its edges and slopes. Some even had a few flowers.
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| Sweetbush, Bebbia juncea |
Many of the bushes looked pretty dry though. They weren't dead, but they were reduced to the bare minimum of living body. They were quiescent - not wasting water on photosynthesis and growth.
We reached a trail junction and had to decide where to go. It was a good place to stop for a short break and debate our options. I have read a bit about this trail before we went on the trip and I knew that continuing on he creek would mean going through a narrows section with scrambling, possible water holes and at least one chute with a rope. I was al eager for that but I conferred with the rest of my family.
There was a movement in one of the bushes and my family birders were up with their cameras in a jiffy. It was a little ruby-crowned kinglet - a familiar bird but we were happy to see it.
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| Ruby-crowned Kinglet |
Meanwhile I found interest in some colorful rocks on the side of the wash and I showed them to my young chika.
By the end of our break we all agreed to go down the wash. The young chika who is usually the most hesitant when it comes to going up or down rock faces seemed to be the most eager this time.
We resumed our hike and soon after the rock walls closed in on us, turning the wash into a deep, shaded canyon.
At first the walking wasn't much different than before - we walked on a relatively flat wash bed of gravel, only now it was narrower and had large rocks here and there to hop over or walk around.
Then, all of a sudden, the canyon narrowed and dropped into a dark slot into which the sunlight didn't penetrate.
There we found the chute with the rope. The elder chika slid down quickly, followed by Pappa Quail who waited below and helped guide the young chika as she made her way down the last part of the chute.
I descended last and looked up at the dry waterfall we just came down on. It was nice to have the rope there and I figured it would be also useful for people going up that way. There were no other hikers nearby at the moment so a traffic jam wasn't an issue.
Our hike slowed down considerably after going down the dry waterfall chute. The wash bed was no longer flat and the narrows were truly narrow. We squeezed and snaked our way through the rocky slot, one step at a time.
Then we came upon a water hole. Thankfully we didn't need to wade in the cold water - there was a path above and around it, but it did involved some scrambling.
On the water floated a dead dragonfly, pale blue like a an outlandish fairy. I leaned a bit hazardously over the water hole to capture the dead insect on camera.
The narrows opened up a bit and the walking became easier. We also came upon a few other hikers that were making their way in the upstream direction.
In places we sometimes had to take turns to pass through a narrower part of the slot canyon. As it was, human traffic was fairly small.
Then the narrows opened up. The red slot canyon remained behind us and once again we were walking in a wide, open desert wash.
The rock layers also changed. The red hard sandstone that made the walls of the slot canyon were replaced by lighter yellow sandstone topped by a a harder, orange-colored rock.
The sun was descending slowly to the west. It wasn't setting yet but the light was becoming softer. The rocks, the bushes, the clouds, everything re-colored with every passing minute. 
We reached a pile of boulders that seemed to block the wash. The boulders didn't seem to match the adjacent side rocks - they might have been carried over by powerful flash floods.
We passed the wash block boulders carefully and found ourselves in another slot canyon, albeit a shorter and wider one.
I am always amazed by the ability of plants to establish themselves inside thin cracks of rocks. Here too were some examples of such plants.
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| Desert Rock Nettle, Eucnide urens |
The rock layers changed again. The wash opened up again and the canyon walls were now much darker, almost basalt-like.
I cannot recall now if that dark rock was indeed basalt or merely a dark patina of a lighter sedimentary rock.
Then the canyon opened up altogether and fanned out into a wide gravely alluvial plain. The gravel plain was lightly forested with tall creosote bushes.
I was mildly surprised to see some flowers here and there on some of the creosote bushes. It is a feature, not a bug. In the unpredictable desert conditions, a limited gambling may yield a huge return - if these few flowers succeed in producing seeds and growth conditions are favorable off season, these off-season progeny will have no competition.
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| Creosote, Larrea tridentata |
The green and lively looking creosote were growing in the alluvial plain but many of the bushes growing on higher ground looked dry and miserable. On a branch of one of the less happy bushes perched a loggerhead shrike, looking out for possible prey.
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| Loggerhead Shrike |
Eventually we came in view of 'The Crack' - the narrow gap in the rocks where the wash connected went through to connect with Lake Havasu. At that point the trail detached from the wash bed and climbed on the rocks parallel to it. The Wash continued through the crack and we continued to the lake just north of it.
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| Sara Crack |
Up close 'The Crack' isn't as narrow as it appears from upstream the wash. The rocks that made the north 'crack' gate formed magnificent pillars that were hard to tear the gaze from.
Being young and human-made, Lake Havasu isn't round or oval, and it has many long coves where the washes used to flow into the natural Colorado River.
There were many birds in the calm water of the cove, the vast majority of them the very common American coots.
There were some other waterfowl in between the coots too however. Pappa Quail and the elder chika had their cameras trained on the water.
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| American Wigeon |
To my request, Pappa Quail documented the coots as well, even though these birds are very common in pretty much every water body we've seen in America so far.
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| American Coot |
While my family birders were looking at the waterfowl and the young chika was looking for pretty stones I turned my attention to the area where the wash continued without us toward Lake Havasu. There was clearly enough underground water there to support a beautiful oasis.
There was also a large, beautiful rock mushroom just off the trail, above the lake. The mushroom's 'leg' was of greenish, very brittle rock and it was topped with a 'head' of dark rust-colored rock of harder consistency.
The trail continued around the cove to its northern shore. I started up that trail and after satisfying themselves with the coots and the wigeons, the rest of my family followed. At the higher spot we also run into a few other hikers, including an elderly couple who passed their retirement touring United States in their motor home.
We got into a lovely and lively chat with the couple. When I asked if they'd like any recommendations on where to go in California they laughed. California was too expensive for them, they said. Especially the gas prices. They had no intention of visiting the golden state.
I couldn't blame them one bit. California is expensive to live in, especially if all you have is retirement funds from a long time career as school teachers, which is what they were.
We bade each other farewell and split ways. The elderly couple took the high trail back toward the parking area and we descended to the north shore of the lovely cove, getting a very nice view of 'Sara's Crack'. From there it didn't look so much as a crack but more like a pillar that got detached from a rock wall.
Aligned directly in front of the crack I got a magnificent view of the confluence oasis beyond it. The colorful assortments of desert riparian plants was simply stunning. I also noted the two very foreign date palms in that oasis and wondered how did they get there.
A close up on the bottom of the crack's rock pillars reveled that Lake Havasu was considerably below its maximal fill level.
A few other ducks swam gently in the water near the north shore of the cove. We don't get to see ring-necked ducks all that often and it was nice to see them there.
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| Ring-necked Duck |
From the north shore of the cove I also had another point of view of the rock mushroom, peeking behind the green rock mass from which it was separated by erosion.
Eventually it was time to turn around and head back. On our way up from the cove we were greeted by another bird of the Colorado Desert - an Abert's towhee.
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| Abert's Towhee |
We decided to go back on the higher trail, staying out and above the wash this time. Pappa Quail took the lead with the chikas following, and me bringing up the rear.
The young chika remained close to me. She wasn't interested in birding but she did like finding interesting things for me to look at. Anthills counted among the interesting things that she pointed my attention to.
It was the young chika who also spotted the rock arch far ahead on the ridge that we were advancing toward.
I kept looking for vegetation. There were much fewer shrubs growing along the higher trail and many of those who did seemed dead or just very dry. The cacti seemed only a little bit better. They too needed the rain to come soon.
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| Buckhorn Cholla, Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa |
Ever since we left the cove we were on a continuous ascend. At some point we were high enough so when we looked back west we had a very nice view of the wash that we hiked in to get to the lake.
Ahead of us the trail was still ascending at a mild slope. We could see the pale path meandering along the base of the dark red ridge.
When we reached the edge of the crest we were on we got a nice view of the more upstream section of the wash, way down below us. I scanned the wash but couldn't see any other hikers on it. It was getting later in the day.
Another Abert's towhee guarded the trail nearby. The bird was bold and stayed on its perch as we filed by on the trail.
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| Abert's Towhee |
Ahead of us rose a sheered butte that bore the name 'Lizard Mountain'. It wasn't really a mountain and I couldn't see any resemblance to a lizard in its shape but there was a loop trail going up that butte that split off the trail we were on, and the information I had said that the view from the top was spectacular.
In short, I convinced Pappa Quail and the chikas that it would be nice to go to the top of Lizard Mountain. The Say's Phoebe that guarded the trail sign agreed with me.
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| Say's Phoebe |
The trail going up Lizard Mountain was steeper, but for the most part it was easy to ascend. In parts however, especially near the top, there were places where we needed to be more careful with our footing, or use our hands for support.
There were interesting sights on the way as well. I like seeing shapes in things and soon enough I spotted an old man's face and a large bull right behind him.
The young chika also saw shapes in things. She had found a dry twig Kokopelli. Kokopelli is the native mythical figure of the vagabond piper, trickster deity.
Lizard Mountain was also of the red rock that gives much of the Colorado Desert its characteristic color from which the name was derived. We walked up the trail fairly quickly and soon arrived at the top.
The view from the top of Lizard Mountain was indeed very impressive. On the south there was the narrow strip of Lake Havasu, beyond which were the mountains of the Whipple Mountains in California.
On the north stretched Lake Havasu City. It was a fairly large city now but it started as a pretty tiny town that supported a nearby army base.
To the east stretched the desert - dry, rugged, and vast. I love the desert. To me it is a place of communing with the spirit.
A rock wren landed in the vicinity. It wasn't very close but the elder chika was able to get a nice photo of the bird.
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| Rock Wren |
There was some more height to ascend but that involved more precarious rock scrambling so we decided to pass on that pleasure. We had enough of that for one day already.
As we rounded the corner to get to the downhill part of the trail we found out why the Lizard Mountain was so named.
Below the mountain, but still higher than the main trail below was the huge form of a lizard created by piled rocks. It was gorgeous. I am not particularly fond of humans making artistic choices that impact nature and alter its pristine wilderness, but this lizard was one of the few exceptions of this general feeling of mine. It simply looked like it completely belonged there.
We descended quickly from Lizard Mountain. I turned around and looked back at the butted we were just on - it looked much higher from this side.
The trail coming down from Lizard Mountain joined the high trail below, and shortly after the main trail that was in the wash, exactly where we had our first hike break. We have completed the loop.
We walked quickly up the wash back to the parking lot. The clouds that followed us most of the hike had drifted away and soft late afternoon sunlight warmed our last steps up to the car. It was time to head back to town and begin to prepare dinner. This was a perfect hike to kick off our winter holiday vacation in the Lake Havasu area.
