Greetings from Willcox, Arizona. It isn’t my usual paradise in Cave Creek Canyon, but it is a change of pace. Gone are my spectacular views, except on my day trips to places like the Chiricahua National Monument and the Galiuro Mountains. Here the sunsets can still be fantastic, though, and every evening I see and hear thousands and thousands of Sandhill Cranes moving from their feeding grounds back to roost. This area sees vast numbers of these birds during migration.
The peace of my Chiricahua homestead is missed. Here, the trains pass frequently even during the night, and I can hear the moos of cattle from the nearby stockyard. There are also dogs yapping, and the sound of this gravel lot as vehicles and feet move around, usually accompanied by loud voices, and the diesel engines of mammoth motorhomes, which always seem to be coming and going.
The original plan was to be here for one month and then head straight back to the corral in Cave Creek Canyon. However, yesterday, I booked flights to visit my family in Chicagoland for Thanksgiving. Now I must figure out an early departure from Lifestyle RV and where to store my Wheelhouse. When I return to Arizona on the last day of November, I will find my way back to the canyon.
I chose Lifestyle because of the hot tub and indoor pool, plus the fact that it has a large gym. Surprisingly, I’ve used the latter the most. Upon arrival, I was disappointed to learn that the hot tub was down for repairs, and it still is for at least this week. The pool was warm and a welcome alternative on the first day, but the temperature is inconsistent, and I have enjoyed it less since. I’m not much for swimming or pools anyway, and a dip of five minutes is plenty. Hopefully, I’ll get to use the hot tub before I leave early and fly from Tucson to Chicago.
Yesterday, I visited the Galiuro Mountains. My first trip had been a few days earlier and hadn’t worked out so well. This range was one that our team of spider hunters wanted to explore, but we never made it there. Brent was able to secure a donation of a female found there from an Arizona tarantula keeper and hunter. We chose not to visit. However, the other day I decided to try it alone. Unfortunately, I didn’t research the coordinates I was given and instead just turned a scenic morning drive into using GPS to go the absolute wrong way. I had a beautiful trip but, four hours later, when I finally found Ash Creek Canyon, I was not in the best spirits. The road becomes very rugged, and I did some intense four-wheeling and eventually got a bit disoriented and down a path too narrow, too rough and also unknown. With zero cell signal or maps (yeah, I was prepared), I got very frustrated trying to find my way back to the main track. I ended up not searching for wildlife on foot and just leaving. Yesterday I knew where to go. It’s only about an hour from Willcox unless you are ill-prepared and drive up the west side of the range and almost end up in Tuscon as I had before! I found two mature male tarantulas on two different roads in the foothills and then proceeded into Ash Creek Canyon. After searching for two-hours-plus without success, I finally found a hole that looked promising.
During our team’s adventures the last week of October, most of our tarantulas had been found beneath cover, usually in burrows hidden under rocks. I had spent the morning flipping rocks and had seen nothing except the usual scorpions, centipedes, and true spiders. Then, while wandering off the roadside to flip some more rocks, I looked down and saw an exposed hole. It was out in the open and was not covered by silk. There was no silk at all, and the most promising thing about the hole was that it was perfectly round. I had found wolf spiders in other holes, but they usually had some sort of silk near the opening and were a bit rougher inside. I started with step one: simulate a flash flood by pouring water down the tunnel. I had filled a 32-oz Powerade bottle with water, and its entire contents disappeared into the dry earth. Nothing happened, but that was a good sign. A deep burrow has excellent potential to be a tarantula. It was all the water I had, though, so I sat there for a minute, trying to get my weak flashlight beam to illuminate inside the hole. Then I saw the forelegs of a tarantula run up the tunnel to investigate. I grabbed a dry blade of grass and tried method two: tickling. The spider was cooperative only briefly as I tried to simulate prey or pest. Then it raced back down out of sight. My stainless steel drinking water bottle contained the Powerade that had been in the other bottle, so I resorted to pouring some red fluid down the hole. The spider did not reappear. I had no choice but to walk back to my truck for a gallon jug of water.
I left most of my gear at the site and was able to find it without difficulty ten minutes later when I returned. I was fortunate to not be far away from where I had parked. I wasn’t smart enough to grab a different flashlight or replacement batteries, however. So, I started as I had begun – flooding. I poured 3/4 of a gallon of water and never saw the spider. The water just kept going, and I knew the tunnel was deep, and the ground was dry. Method three was my only choice. I would have to dig the spider out of its hole. I don’t have good digging tools like Brent and Chris Hamilton carry. They have heavy picks that can do short work of scraping away the earth around the burrow. I had only a small, aluminum hand trowel designed for backpackers and my SOG lock blade knife. The excavation was difficult and I feared I would be unsuccessful. But I dug and dug and followed the earth that was wet from all the water I had used to scrape deeper with my knife. Forty-five or so minutes later, I finally found the small female.
Aphonopelma sp., female, Ash Creek Canyon, Galiuro Mountains, Graham County, Arizona
Zoropsidae sp., Ash Creek Canyon, Galiuro Mountains
The only other spider I photographed was the above unidentified member of the family Zoropsidae. During my hairy four-wheeling adventure during my first visit to the Galiuros earlier in the week I photographed the Rainbow Grasshopper below.
Dactylotum bicolor, Ash Creek Canyon, Galiuro Mountains
Nothing much else to report. Tomorrow morning I’ll drive to Tucson to do a few things, including picking up a male tarantula that an iNaturalist user had found near the Rincon Mountains. He knew that Brent, Chris, and myself would be interested and reached out to me. I’ll ship it to Brent along with the two males and one female tarantula I collected in the Galiuros yesterday. Tonight I am going to make a drive back to my Cave Creek Canyon home because I screwed up and didn’t change the shipping address on Amazon for an order I placed. Now I have a 150-mile round-trip package collection. But it will be good to see my favorite place!