La Milagrosa and Aqua Caliente Canyons Loop

OK, forget about the snake story, mentioned below.  The hike was not that interesting so I'll move on. We park outside a gated community after driving on Snyder and a left on Avenida de Suzena.  We walk on a road that is sometimes paved and sometimes dirt.  They have extended the road to accommodate more lots so it's a little different from a recent visit.  Walking up a steep but short hill, we drop into a canyon and ......

.....ascend the Milagrosa trail.  Easy to follow as we hike while sometimes peering into....

....the canyon.  My partner.....

....Amy's first visit so she takes a few pictures as I watch for a cairn at mile 2.5 (from the car park).  Finding it, we leave the trail but what follows is also easy to follow.

We drop into Aqua Caliente Canyon, follow it down canyon for about 300 yards while watching for a trail departing from the left.  We begin climbing again and pass a faint trail going right but it has rocks across it so ignore.  At some point, the trail jogs back to the east which has a nice....

....view of Aqua Caliente Peak.  We reach an intersection having a large cairn and break right.  Going straight takes one to Aqua Caliente Peak trail.

We pause to take in some more great views.  The trail is descending now and we pass through....

....a gate.  Eventually we reach an opportunity to break right or continue straight but I suspect going straight leads to an overlook so we go right.  The trail is very steep here as it drops into the canyon.  We found.....

....a key that was placed on a rock in the middle of the trail.  Odd.  Probably someone found it and placed it there, hoping the owner would retrieve it.  This is a fun loop as we finished with 6.45 miles and 1500' of limbing.  Seemed like more climbing then that to me.