These photos are from our property in the Altar Valley which is west of the Tucson basin.
To the West, atop KItt Peak in the Quinlan Mountains at 6,883 ft., is the Kitt Peak National Observatory, home to more than twenty optical and two radio telescopes. Fine tobacco and Teddy Bear Cholla are a fine pairing.Resident shaman and animal whisperer on duty on a lovely afternoon at 3,500 feet in the Upper Sonoran Desert in the Altar Valley.A clump of Prickly Pear cactus.High desert grasslandPrickly pear cholla and a young Palo Verde tree.The view to the Southwest, the Quinlan Mountains, and Mexico beyond.The view to the West of the Coyote and Quinlan Mountains.The view to the South and Mexico off in the distance.Looking West at the Coyote and Quinlan Mountains.A makeshift ashtray.The view to the East and the Sierrita Mountains from our road.Gunsight Mountain (4,500 ft) in the Sierrita Mountains.Ranchers and homesteaders keeping an eye out.A section of the vast Diamond Bell Ranch was subdivided into housing lots in 1970 and gravel streets and signs were installed. Only the first phase was built out and the desert is slowly reclaiming the unused sections.That’s Gunsight Mountain at the Northern end of the Sierrita Mountains and East of our lot. If you hiked to the top through endless cactus while keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes and looked to the East, you’d be seeing the Tucson Basin.A young Palo Verde tree.A barrel cactus that produces beautiful flowers when it blooms in the Spring.That prominent peak off in the distance is Baboquivari, sacred to the Tohono O’odham people. It can easily be spotted 60 miles way from Tucson.Only the built out Phase I got a well installed which is now owned and managed by the City of Tucson. Everyone else has water trucked in to fill storage tanks. Parked on the street.Peering through the thicket from where the javelinas bed down in the grass.Winter clouds above Gunsight Mountain.A Teddy Bear Cholla skeleton.The neighbors coming out to greet us.
Casa Dunthor 