Pink Desert Sunrise. Near Picacho Peak, Arizona, 2016 (That’s “The Plug” sitting in the right half of the photo, with the Picacho Mountains in the background.)
This is not much of a summit as far as mountains go. In fact, the total climb barely exceeds 50 vertical feet–maybe as high as a good fire department extendable ladder.
Still, the formation is geologically veddy, veddy interesting.
When you zip by at 75-per on the nearby busy autobahn, you can see its dark turd-like countenance not far away on the east side of I-10 (opposite Picacho Peak), contrasting sharply with the light-colored, flat, and over-grazed desert.
From the summit of “The Plug”, looking west toward I-10 and Picacho Peak:
Picacho Peak View. Picacho Peak, Arizona, 2016
A more artistic view of Picacho Peak from the railroad culvert:
Culvert View. Picacho Peak, Arizona, 2016
Here I’ll offer up two more “beta” images for you, taken on another day (18 December) from what I would call the East Summit of Picacho Peak (a sub-peak of that massif).
In this first one (pre-dawn), you can clearly see the red and white tower (a good reference point), the culvert under the railroad tracks (a place to park and the best/safest way to cross the tracks), and the flat desert leading over to the plug (even an old concrete foundation can be seen just before the plug).
The Basalt Plug. From East Picacho Peak, Arizona, 2016
In this one (taken just after sunrise), you get a slightly bigger picture of a similar scene in which the oddness of the basalt plug is obvious:
East Summit, #3. From East Picacho Peak, Arizona, 2016
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