Urban wildflower hikeArizona Hiking

TERRACE TRAIL

Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Area

Globemallow, March 7, 2013

Wolfberry, March 7, 2013

She appeared out of a pile of rubble to check me out as I
photographed wildflowers on the flood plain. The beautiful white pitbull mix kept both her distance and a
watchful eye on my wanderings, never letting me get more than a few dozen yards of her. I dubbed her “Ghost”. Sadly, feral dogs and cats are common in this
5-mile stretch of the Salt River, which cuts through Phoenix just south of
downtown. Surrounded by quarries
and construction industries, this 595-acre City of Phoenix multi-purpose
project spanning from 19^th Ave to 28^th Street was
developed to restore the native riparian life zone, improve flood management
and open new recreational opportunities.
The formerly blighted river corridor was cleared, water pumped in and
thousands of native plants reintroduced into created wetland marshes, mesquite
bosques and cottonwood-willow habitats. Even with all the improvements, the
sights and sounds of the heavy industry end of town are ever present ---planes
overhead, earth movers groaning in the quarries that flank the river and
unfortunate piles of trash carried in on the wind. Still, it’s important to keep in mind how extraordinary it
is that this place even exists. And,
for me that’s the draw. Although
the Terrace Trail is one of the least attractive of the area’s hiking routes, I
find it fascinating to marvel at the variety of life inhabiting this sliver of
green wedged between freeways and barrios. Beautiful life such as globemallow, wolfberry and popcorn
flowers mix with water fowl, rabbits, lizards and misplaced beasts like Ghost,
who I last saw loping off toward 19^th Avenue.