BJ and I went for another walk at McKinney Roughs. This time we got there at 8:00 am in an attempt to beat the heat as today was forecast to be 103 degrees, feeling like 108. We were walking the toughest trail in the park, namely Pine Ridge. It’s not that Pine Ridge is long and arduous but it is strenuous due to the steep climbs on both sides of the valley and the many steps carved out of the hillside which are not in the best of repair and make for difficult climbing. We were both breathing heavy by the time we had reconnoitered both sets of steps. Except for the very stony and pebbly walking, the rest of the trail was relatively normal. By the amount of grass growing on and around the steps, it looks like the Pine Ridge Trails have not been used that much lately.

We passed the construction that is going on with the zip lines, walking by a couple of the towers. The workers were busy doing their thing as we passed. It looks like they are still several weeks away from opening. BJ says that she is definitely going to try it. I have some reservations and will have to see what inherent dangers it might present to my 80 year old body.

Pine Ridge turns into Bobcat Ridge which in turn, changes to Riverside which is the really wide trail in the picture below. Great walking. It finally turns back into Pine Ridge which brought us back to where we started. Altogether, we covered almost 5 miles. Even though we started early, it was already in the high 80’s and as usual, I was totally soaked by the time we were through.

As we walked, we were looking for any sort of flowers or unusual cactus that I could take pictures of and we managed to find a few. We have walked these trails so often that it is getting difficult to find something new to photograph.

The pine trees are looking very green and spectacular.

The trails look cool and inviting.

Another great view from the top of Bobcat Ridge.

I also took several pictures of the wonderful skyline and views from the trails and put them into two panoramic pictures. The one at the top of the page is of three combined pictures and the one below is of four.

As with all of these grouped pictures, if you click on anyone of them, it will enlarge and you can use the side arrows to move them along.. Use the “Escape” key to get back to normal.