02-27-10

On February 16th. we took a ride to Dripping Springs (see blog for that date). We hadn't expected to go there but it just turned out that way.
Yesterday we went back to that area because I wanted to check out some more roads.
We drove past the wash that eventually leads to Dripping Spring and continued south until we came to a trail going east into the the mountains. We followed this trail to its end in an area that has a bunch of quartz outcrops. Some of them looked like quartz waterfalls cascading down the mountainsides. Some others were close to the trail. We stopped near these and every one combed the area looking for crystals.

Becky and Missy found a few small clear ones. We spent about an hour there then drove back to the north south trail and continued on a southerly course until the trail turned east into a wash. Becky got a nice picture of a hawk in a tree along the way.

The going got tougher and tougher until we got to a point where we could go no further because of the large boulders in the bed.

We stopped here for lunch

and then retraced our route down the wash. We came to a branch in the wash that went south so we turned on to it. The going wasn't to bad but there was one spot that was pretty tight and we weren't sure that Juniors wider jeep would make it through unscathed.

He took it slow and made it with no problem.
A little later we came to another of the Game water areas.

From there the wash got wider and easier to travel. It looked like we would be out of it in a little while. When we came to an intersection I turned east again and after a while Patti and I realized that we had been here before (See blog for Feb. 13)
We stopped at a wide spot do discuss which way to proceed. After discussing the options we decided to drive over the mountains on a steep trail


that eventually goes past the Mailbox cabin.
We passed the M.B.C. and drove over the I-10 overpass to a dirt pipe line trail that goes along the north side of I-10 to quartzsite.
Here is the map.