My Bucket List just got shorter!

I have been wanting to hike to Elephant Mountain near Cave Creek for a long time and we finally accomplished that feat yesterday morning. Over 7+ miles of rugged trail, it was the most beautiful scenery I have seen to date in AZ. But, it had its moments and I will probably never set foot on that particular trail again in this lifetime! My apprehension began with one gal saying to really watch for rattlesnakes as it is "that time of the year". The trail was very narrow in certain sections with brush swiping at your ankles and all I could think about was a big old rattler coiled up in there and me not hearing it! (Too many years spent on the riding lawn mower has significantly cut into any acute hearing I once possessed!) Fortunately we never met up with one but the thought had my heart beating pretty hard as we discussed how we would get out of that terrain should one of us get "struck"!

Soon thoughts of rattlers began to fade and I started to enjoy the scenery once more. Then one lady, obviously a former girl scout prodigy, hollers "uh oh, very fresh mountain lion tracks." I did not believe her but two other gals confirmed that, indeed, they were from a mt. lion. Well, that announcement made me think of rattlers as nothing more than over-sized night crawlers and I started to really scope the landscape for this cat. At one point I asked my sister what that god awful smell was that suddenly surrounded us. I had no sooner said that when the girl scout wonder woman informs us that the mountain lion has just sprayed us and that means it is very close to the trail. I am now edging closer to freaking out and wishing I had my trusty shot gun from my raccoon killing Iowa farm days.

Well, to make a long story a bit shorter, we started out the day with 8 gals and ended with 5 at trail's end....... :-)

Seriously, I NEVER want to be that close to a mountain lion again and I am marking this hike off my 10 point Bucket List!

Some shots from the hike: (One is a fake. See if you can guess which one!) :-)