24.04.16 Blue Point to The Ovens

Blue Point to The Ovens

I tried to look up the history of the ovens here and couldn't find anything for this particular oven but nearby in Florence, AZ there are several ovens that were use to burn mesquite wood to a product called coke.  This coke burned much hotter and the mines would use it for smelting gold and silver.  This particular oven may have been used for that or maybe it was simply used for cooking.

The trailhead starts off from a parking lot for the Blue Point Recreation Area along the Salt River.

Linda and I were the only ones to go on this hike as it's getting into the upper 80's by the afternoon and is a bit warm for hiking.

You can see an area across the river that people use as a beach area.

This is where the trail turns up the canyon but is a nice place for kayakers to rest, fisherman or wading in the river.

The trail heads up a wash in this canyon.

We came a across this rattlesnake here, it's a good thing the trail was wide so we could give him some berth!

It's pretty unique how they built this into the rock along the canyon wall and then finished it off building a chimney.

This is some fine craftmanship!

Linda is keeping her distance from the edge, it's about 1.5 miles back to the truck from here.

Of course we found some cactus blossoms and desert flora to take photos of!

This plant is called a fairy duster.

Linda wanted to take a break, it was starting to get hot already.

In the background is Stewart Mountain.  This trail actually loops around the mountain for about 7.5 miles but it didn't show up on my All Trails app.  That one is going to have to wait until the next time we are in this area!

It's hard to see but there's a couple of kayakers down river here.

I couldn't resist getting this picture of our furry little friend out here!

Taking in the sights and watching people floating down river.

Linda snapped this shot also.  This is likely the last hike in this area as the temps are forecast to be in the mid to upper 90's down here for a while.  I'll miss my hiking friends I met down here but we sure made some memories.  I'm pretty certain we'll land back in this area another time and make more!