03-29-12

Patti and I wanted to go on the Wednesday ride but I didn’t get the word on the meeting place (my fault). We drove to (white Jeep) Dennis’s but they were not there so we went to the fire station. No luck there either so we went to the Arco station on the east end of town. No one there either. We decided to take a ride by ourselves. We drove out the road heading east past the Arco station to where Gold nugget Road crosses I-10. We turned north and followed several trails that ,of course ended up in cul-de-sacs. On one of the trails we came to a two inch galvanized pipe coming out of the hills. We parked near the end of the pipe

and I followed it up an interesting canyon. After about a hundred feet the pipe changed from Galvanize to black plastic. I continued to follow the pipe until it went straight up and through a notch in the cliff above me.

It was too steep for me to follow so I tried to circle around but got into a canyon that I couldn’t climb

so I gave up and followed a trail into the canyon

looking at the rock formations

and enjoying the views.

I came to some sinks (depressions in the bedrock) that had water in them. The water was green and scummy

but I suppose that animals would use them for drinking. I turned down hill and followed the wash back to the jeep.

From there we continued our exploration, driving up and down a couple more trails, all dead ends. On one of the roads we found an old ruin of some sort.

Inside the walls the ruin was filed with Cholla balls.

We often find Cholla balls in shallow caves and depressions. I don’t know if they are blown in by the wind or brought in by animals to guard their nests. Either way we don’t go into places where the Cholla balls are because they collect on your shoes and some times will even penetrate the shoes and stick in your feet. Bad stuff and an effective barrier.

We stopped for lunch in the shade of a Palo Verde tree.

After lunch we headed for home.