Quail Springs a Great Place to Explore

We always park at the Quail Springs Picnic Area and head west towards the rock formations in the distance. Sometimes we go left toward the 'Cliffs of Dover', but this time we headed toward a canyon to the right which looked interesting. On the way, you cross a bench of dunes which are now peppered with Sand Verbena, a beautiful sight. Before we got half way to the Canyon we heard many, little voices behind us on the trail. When we turned around, there were about 20 kids being led on a hike to the same canyon we were headed, so we veered off to the right and up the hill, where we found an old mining road which went up and around the back of the rocky hills we were interested in exploring. This turned out to be a good decision, because it made the approach easier and more leisurely and you get wonderful views of the entire area. Once up on top we found a nice niche in the rocks for lunch, again with great views in either direction. Then we wandered down the other side  into an incredible patch of red barrel cactus. We could see the kids in the distance disappearing over a distant hill. Finally, we made our way down to a wash which led back through the canyon we were originally interested in exploring. We did it in reverse order but was just as fun. As we got back down to the trail, there were the kids again, trooping along and exploring some rocks to the south. They must have slept well that night, because we sure did.