This hike starts at Sophie’s Trailhead, named for Sophie Burden, co-owner and dubbed “Queen” of the historic Remuda Guest Ranch. The tails are marked with lettered posts. From the trailhead, we follow A trail 1.1 mile to B trail. On A trail, most of time we hike on the dry bed of the wash with lots of horses’ trash. Maybe this is the reason we don’t see any bikers on the trail. We follow B trail about 0.7 miles to the junction with C trail. Veer right and follow C trail about 0.5 mile.

A, B, and C are loose sand, rugged desert trails with many minor ups-downs. Greg got a little jumping cholla cactus on his leg. Quy removes needles with Monika’s tweezers. We turn left on the A trail again and follow the A trail to hike down to the wash. We follow D trail about 0.7 mile, drop into the obvious course of Dinosaur Wash. When we look up across the wash, below on the horizon is a rock formation atop a mountain that might, with some imagination, be a dinosaur. After having lunch at a nice spot at the wash, we hike back the way we came.

This is a pleasurable hike around typical Sonoran Desert landscape with stands of saguaro, ocotillo, palo verde and mesquite trees and various of cactus under the pleasant weather. We also enjoy the magnificent surrounding mountain vista. Most of all, we are satisfied to find out the meaning of Dinosaur Wash.

Hike statistics from Wendy: