Thursday, December 13, 2018

A Nice Mellow Ride in California. (Indian Pass)


The Plan.

Tom is leading this Wednesday ride.
The plan is to go west on I-10 past Blythe, CA. Then take Highway 78 heading south. Eventually turning east on a dirt road that goes over Indian Pass. The hope is that we can get through Indian Pass and connect with SR-95 and go back home that way.

Lets Get Going.

We met at the Mac Donald's and were on the road a little after 9:00.
We got on I-10 going west.

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Several miles past Blythe we got off the Interstate and headed south on 78.

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Highway 78 zig-zag’s through miles of agricultural land.

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Right now there is mostly Alfalfa

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and Cotton.

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Eventually we left the agricultural area and entered an area of rough hills and rocky soil.

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Looking For Rock’s.

After a while we took a right turn off the highway into a narrow canyon.

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This is as far as we could go so we stopped here so people could look for rocks.

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All the people on this ride except Patti and I are ardent rock hounds, so they spend a lot of time looking for special rocks.

Here is Tom hunting rocks on top of a high ridge.

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Interesting rock formations.

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After about half an hour we headed back to the highway and continued our trek south.

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Indian Pass Trail.

Eventually we came to a wide graded road going west. We turned onto it.

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Nice scenery along the way.

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More Rocks.

Around 11:30 Tom pulled off the road to the left at a wide flat area.
This is a designated rock collecting area.

On the south side of the road is a designated wilderness area. On the north side of the road is an area where the rock clubs and other rock hounds have hunted rocks for many years.

In the picture below you can see Lillie hunting on the right and Freda on the left side.

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This is a good picture showing the kind of rocks around here. The dark color on the rocks is called Desert Varnish. It is caused by a reaction to the sun. Kind of like a sunburn. If you turn the rocks over they are a different color on the bottom where the sun doesn't shine.

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Lunch.

After about 45 minutes all the rock hunters are back and we sit down for lunch.

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While we were eating a bunch of military helicopters flew by.
Patti was able to get a picture of one of them.

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Moving Right Along.

After lunch we continued our ride east.

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We are driving toward these beautiful mountains and the road is getting a little bumpier.

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The road takes us through this great canyon.

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More Choppers.

As we are dropping into the canyon two more helicopters fly out of a side canyon and across our path.

In the picture below you can see a chopper coming out from behind the mountain. You can see it just above the black jeep.

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Here is a better picture of the helicopter.

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Moving On.

We continue down the canyon enjoying the scenery.

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The trail narrows down again.

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We squeeze through the narrows.

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After the narrows, the trail opens up into a wide wash.

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Picacho State Recreation Area.

At the end of the wash we came to an intersection. Here we entered the Picacho Recreation area.

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Burro Alert!

As we drove along we saw some burros off in the bush.

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A little further along we saw several more Burros.

Like these guys.

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And this one too.

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And these two.

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Lush Growth.

We continued down the trail. As we got closer to the Colorado River we encounter this lush growth of Tamarisk.

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Eventually we see some water. I’m not sure whether this is the Colorado River or just a slough.

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We go through another narrow place.

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And then we enter Bear Canyon.

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An interesting hoodoo in Bear Canyon.

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Further along the canyon we drive through these rounded clay hills.

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As we leave Bear Canyon we see another slough with a bunch of White Pelican’s and a raft of Coots.

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Civilization.

We go by some more interesting rock.

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Eventually we see signs of civilization off to the left.

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Arches.

As we continue along we see this small arch high on the mountain.

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Farther down the road we see another arch.

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Eventually we leave the recreation area and follow a large slough.

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We cross the slough and continue east into another Ag area. This time there are several Date Palm orchards.

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Date Shake’s.

We stopped at a small store that sells Date related items.
I had never had a Date Shake so I bought one and it was excellent.

Heading Home.

After we had our Date Shakes we headed for home.
We crossed below the  Imperial Dam and came to SR-95 at the entrance to the Yuma Proving Grounds where the big guns are.

These are not the big guns, just some old tanks.

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We got home around 5:30. It was a nice mellow ride through some new country. A good Day!

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