Ernie's Falls

Until today, all of our hiking at Saguaro National Park has been in the Western Unit.  

Temperatures here have been cool for southeast Arizona with highs in the upper 60's, so we took advantage of that with a late morning drive to Saguaro National Park East.  The small parking lot was full. We joined the line of cars parked along the side of the road.  The person parked in front of us was a witch.  How do I know?  Her personalized license plate and bumper stickers said so.  

The trail to Ernie Falls starts at the Douglas Springs Trail and is an in and out, totaling 6.7 miles.  We took a couple of detours and added a short hike to Bridal Springs Falls for a total of 7.5 miles.  The trail is very well-marked and easy to follow.  While we saw other hikers out there, it thinned out considerably after the first couple of miles.  

Random hiker enjoying the view

Elevation gain during the hike was about 1263 feet according to Alltrails, but it was very gradual.  The falls were not exactly of the Niagra Falls variety.  While we had an unusual amount of rain this fall in southeast Arizona, none of it hasn't fallen very recently, so there was a mere trickle at both of the falls.

Nevertheless, it was a great day for a hike, which we followed up with a beer and burger at the Barnyard Drafthouse and Eatery on the east end of Tanque Verde Road.  

Dunkel for me, and a Hazy IPA for Julia