Walked Kachina Trail, Flagstaff

I just about over-walked myself today, probably 4+ miles out and back, not quite to the end of Kachina Trail. The guide book classified it "easy"; I beg to differ. More like moderate difficulty (or am I just too old and fat?).

I might have made it all the way if I hadn't decided to carry both camera and binoculars, and field guides to both birds and butterflies, plus water. I knew better. In fact, I started out with binoculars & bird guide only, then right away saw a beautiful "butterfly" and went back to the car to get my camera & butterfly book.

After taking a bunch of photos and staring at every single page of the Brock & Kaufmann butterfly guide to no avail, I finally (slapping forehead) put together its feathered antennae with moths (the other and less popular lepidopteran). No moth book on hand. I hoped a few of the photos would turn out to be useful when I found one.

(Here it is!)

An emergency text message to my buggy Okie cousin got me a reference to bugguide.net, which was impossible on my iPhone (I tried), but back in the motel I spent a few hours struggling to identify it and succeeded: It's a police car moth (Gnophaela vermiculata). Aptly named, I mean the "police car" part, for its black-and-white pattern. (see photo)

A smart person would have returned camera and b'fly book (AND binoculars & bird book) to the car! But no. I carried on, lugging all that crap around, uphill and downhill, over rocks, slipping onto my ass once, needing neither camera or binoculars again for the rest of the walk. Oh, okay, I did take some snapshots of the woods but could have lived without them! In spite of that, it was a beautiful walk and I had a great time. The trail wandered through aspens, Douglas firs, and limber pines -- more or less along a contour line but dipping down into little canyons formed by runoff (hence the up/down stuff & my weariness) -- passing occasional open grassy areas formed by small avalanches knocking out the trees here and there (I read that somewhere.) Though I panted and sweated and averaged about one mile per hour with all my stops, now that I'm on a bed and looking back, remembering the beauty and the cool air, I'm already planning my next time, determined to make it all the way.