No trekking involved.

While I would love to relate how I drove for hours through the desert in an all wheel drive vehicle then trekked dozens of miles to my destination, the reality is that these snaps were taken exactly 2 miles from my doorstep in Scottsdale in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve which, at 30,500 acres in area, is the largest nature reserve in the United States. Some 180 miles of trails make discovery easy and the weather today was picture perfect.

So while the northeast is buried in snow, the southeast flooded, the midwest frozen over and the northwest fogged in, Arizonans find themselves happily basking in the sun, the weather the least of our concerns.

Here’s a map of the Preserve:

All snapped on the Nikon D3x with the 35mm Sigma Art (first and fourth) or the 20mm UD Nikkor (all others).

The Preserve teems with wild life and birds, not least the javelina (a peccary, related to the wild boar) which often wander into my community in search of cactus fruit, a favorite:

On my morning walk, January 27, 2018.

Update November 2019:

The scum that call themselves ‘developers’ and their low-life hangers on, realtors, sought to open the Preserve to commercial development, rock concerts, T shirt sales, booze, white trash – you name it. All the sort of things that bring white trash and crime to a pristine neighborhood and one I particularly care about as my community abuts the Preserve. Decent residents placed Proposition 420 on the November mid-term ballot and I was pleased to contribute mightily to the cause. I am delighted to report that the bottom feeders were well and truly trashed as the voters voted that there would be no development without a majority vote at the ballot box, much to the dismay of the politicians who had sought to do this by Council vote. The story is here. Next time you pay some realtor scumbag 6% to show you a bathroom that you can see free online, think about that.

iPhone6 snap.