Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Agua Fria National Monument, Badger Springs trailhead

Tarantula? At least two to three inches long, maybe two inches tall, long hairy
folded legs, red-haired cylindrical tail-like appendage. Walked by the car at 
night, stopped, let me get the flashlight to examine it, then walked off 
perpendicularly, away from me, as I had asked him not to bother me that night, 
please.

Coyote climbing the canyon side, very small.

Dove in the wash, probably let herself be seen in response to my dove calls 
on the recorder.

Bird with long descending trilled call, exactly as I remember the bird at the 
Grand Gallery in Utah. http://subbot.org/misc/music/Grand_gallery_bird.mp3

Cactus wren call, a troupe of quails flying above me from the west side of the 
canyon over the water to land on the far side.

Lizards scampering across the path.

Rattlesnake, warned me as I passed a rock he was on.

Old twisted tree, growing on top of a large boulder, probably dead now. The 
trunk had (been?) twisted down to form a triangle, the former top of the tree 
now intertwined with the roots that gripped the boulder's sides.

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I can feel a lot of power in this place. A lot of knowledge.

Thousands of petroglyphs, high up on a basalt (?) flow near the top; the rock 
art, very striking white scratches on the reddish-brown-black rock face, 
stretches for half a mile or more.

One large cross with circular and rectangular elements near it; a map?

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A big mafic boulder split in two. Across the top of the split, two grinding 
holes, neatly separated by the split. The grinding holes must have been made 
when the rock was whole. How long ago?

Did they use the grinding holes to mix white paint for the rock art?

I played a quail call on the recorder near this boulder. I could hear echos 
up and down the canyon. Very powerful feeling. I didn't want to play more, I 
stopped after the quail calls, because I wasn't sure I was prepared, musically, 
to handle the power of that spot, yet.

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Rocks

Black boulders with occasional small white circular crystals, like eggs, 
within them.

Black boulders with seeming spheres of pumice within them, again like eggs.