03-15-10

On Sunday, I led Becky, Dennis, Junior and David (Missy had other things to do) to the area that Patti and I had explored on Saturday.

The morning was bright and clear but with a strong cold wind blowing down from the north.
We left the park at 9:00 and drove east on I-10. We took the hwy. 60 exit heading northeast then turned south on Ramsey Mine rd. After crossing the overpass we stopped at an information kiosk where there was enough room to park Dennis's truck.
As Clifford was topless today, by the time we stopped, Patti and I were freezing.
Dennis unloaded his Rhino and we continued on down Ramsey Mine road.

When we got to the mine we took a right turn on a set of ATV tracks. The tracks went into a rocky wash which we followed until we could go no farther. There we found a vertical shaft about 30 feet deep.

After dropping a few stones into the shaft to check its depth we retraced our route and came to another trail going southwest. At the end of this road is another shaft. It is one that Patti and I visited the day before.
After we dropped a few rocks in this one everyone was duly impressed with its depth and reflexively backed away from the mouth of the hole.
We headed back toward the mine and took a right turn.
A little way further, at a fork in the road, instead of turning left as Patti and I had done the previous day, we went straight and followed the road south.
At the bottom of a steep hill we came to another cross road where we turned right onto the trail and followed it to the west. After a while I realized that Patti and I had followed this same road yesterday and had eaten lunch at its end. When we reached the end of the track, we turned around again and headed back. After a couple miles we came to what Patti and I named "Little Arch Cave" and stopped to investigate.

The cave wasn't as extensive as it looked from the outside, it was only about 15 feet long and only a few feet tall.
We spent some time climbing around the rocks

and checking out some cactus

One bunch of Pincushions looked like something had been eating it.

Near the cactus was a pile of droppings that looked like it may have been from a Bighorn sheep so I guess that is what had been eating the cactus.

Things in the desert will grow where ever they can get a grip. This plant is growing in a crack in solid rock.

I guess this is one of natures ways of braking down rocks over time.
After a while we traveled on over the hills and along washes.

One Trail took us to the edge of the "New Water Mountains Wilderness".

We followed another wash to the south and around the the west side of "Twin Peaks".
As you may recall, on our last trip Patti and I went around the east side of the peaks.
In the wash we saw some Pincushion cactus that were about to bloom

and some nice views.

The trail we were on looked like it might go all the way around Twin Peaks but after a long hard drive we came to the end of the road.

From here we had a nice view of the "Eagles Eye".

The time was getting late so we turned around and headed for home.

We arrived back at the Kiosk at 5:00 and were home by 5:30.
I didn't include a map in the last blog because I thought that I could impose it on the map for this blog but that didn't work out so I am including both maps here.

Map of trip on 03-13-10

Map of trip on 03-14-10
But, Wait there's more!
There hasn't been a burning of the dogs ceremony in several weeks so today a bunch of us went to the the ceremonial fire pit just west of here and sacrificed several franks to the weenie gods.
Here are some pictures of the gathering.

Donna and Greg were visiting Suzanne and Roy from Alberta, and the feast was held in their honor.


We all had a good laugh over Missy's weenie roaster.

On the way home we stopped to get some pictures of wild flowers.

On Wednesday we are taking a group out to The Kofa on a wild flower photographing expedition.

So the next blog will no doubt be full of flower pictures.