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This is in "Toby Wash" in a valley in the High Sonoran desert around Thanksgiving of 2001. This area was named a "National Monument" in 2000 by Bill Clinton and the debates on how to manage it are still going on between Arizona Game and Fish and the Fed. Bureau of Land Management. We hope they don't close off some of the "access roads" to the edges of the Wilderness Areas that are incorporated in it. It may give you a feel of the sandy washes here. They have their own beauty though they may seem sort of "desolate" to some. In wet springs there are many wildflowers in this area. We have camped in this wash and been awakened by three Big Horn Sheep walking through the camp and tipping over a water jug and a shovel. Those guys are pretty big when you sit up sort of "nose-to-nose with 'em. They were a little shocked at their own "noise" and took off. In the morning we saw them in the cliffs above us. (right behind the camera). Also, these washes are nowhere to be in a big rain. Flash floods scour them clean and can come from a storm that is some miles away. (Forgive the Arizona Chamber of Commerce pitch.) The other side of this is that these spots can be miserably hot in mid-summer and water is almost non-existant. Rainstorms that come with the Monsoon winds are in late July thru early September. (If we are lucky.) Also, since summer nights are the time for those "crawly" things, there are other great places to go, rather than these spots, either higher up, closer to water, (or under roof). :-)
Carmen's husband, Axel has been to Sonora, Mexico on water engineering business. The Sonoran desert is very large and diverse.
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