11/25 Tonto National Monument/ Saguaro National Park - Rincon Mountains District

Tonto is another new site for us. 

It is a lovely small park in the Superstition Mountains, currently undergoing some construction work that closed off the upper cliff dwellings. 

We spotted a canyon wren.

This was truly thrilling as neither of us has ever seen a tarantula in the wild before! This lovely is a desert tarantula, but they are locally referred to as Arizona Blondes.

The cliff dwellings were home to people of the Salado culture from the 13th - early 15th century. They created gorgeous polychrome pottery - samples of which could be spied in the oblique view of the museum available from the trail entry ( it's is currently closed).

We visited the Tucson Mountains (west unit) District of the park last Thanksgiving and it was so lovely, we decided to check out the Rincon Mountains District this year!

The saguaro forest is a bit denser on the west side, but there are lots of trails crisscrossing this unit.

Phainopepla!

It's a beautiful park and we enjoyed our afternoon explore.