Wednesday Ride in the Plomosa Mountains With a Surprise.

Lets Go.

We met at the fire station, north of town. There were three jeeps on the ride today; Lillie and Tom, Becky and Dennis and Patti and I.
Once we were all there we drove north on 95 to Plomosa Road, here we headed east across the flats toward the mountains.

Just past milepost 7 we turned right onto a trail and stopped to air down the tires.

The dark spots on the photo are because the lens cover on our Cannon camera didn’t open all the way.

On the Trail.

After airing down we headed out the trail going south.

Eventually we came to a trail going east and followed it toward the mountains. We drove up a small hill that we call the lookout hill.

From here we have a good view of the mountains.

You can see the trail we are going on at the lower left of the picture. After a short break at the lookout we drove east on the trail.

The Surprise.

We were driving along the trail and I noticed mountain sheep heads poking above the Chollas.

We stopped and tried getting some pictures of the rams but the brush and cactus were in the way.
I slowly moved the jeep forward so we could possibly get better pictures.
The sheep weren’t cooperating. They were too interested in grazing to pose for us.

Eventually we were able to see all three rams but still not posing.

Here is one with a broken horn tip posing for us .

One thing Patti and I noticed is that there were no Cholla’s stuck to the rams. We see a lot of Cows grazing around the desert. Many of them have Cholla’s stuck to them. We have never seen a sheep in that condition.

Game Water System.

Once the Rams moved off…

we continued our ride.

We followed the trail to the end. On the way back we stopped at a game watering station.

There are a lot of these watering stations around the desert. The system is pretty cool with no moving parts. They just lay out a bunch of tin roofing like a roof on the ground. When it rains the water runs down the roof and drains into a large covered cistern
(a big tank). In the above photo you can see the tank and part of the roof. The water flows into a concrete basin where the animals can drink. There were two basins at this spot. One of them was covered with a thin layer ice this morning.
Here is the sign that you can see in the above picture.

By the way, we did close the gate before we left. The fence around the watering station is to keep out the Burro’s.

Sheep Again.

We left the watering system. A mile or so down the trail we saw the same three rams. These guys really get around.

Here is the one with the broken horn tip.

Here is another one.

These guys look like they are very healthy. Beautiful.

Chrysocola.

We left the rams to their grazing and drove back along the trail.
After a little ways we took a small trail to the left. At the end of the trail we found this nice seam of Chrysocola.

Here is a closer look at the seam.

Here is Becky trying to chip off a small piece.

After a little while we left the Chrysocola and continued our ride.

The next stop was at this deep vertical shaft at the top of a ridge in a saddle between two peaks.

Here is a nice chunk of Chrysocola but it is wedged under a piece of wood at the edge of the shaft. I guess it will stay where it is.

Lunch.

We left the shaft and drove further along the trail. We found a spot for lunch in the lea side of this rock.  Without the wind it was a comfortable day but the wind was right out of the north and was very cold.

After lunch we drove along enjoying the beauty of this country.

We drove through a pass in the mountains.

Near an intersection of two trails, we came to this rock structure. This is a well known land mark. There is a nice view to the west from here.

Looking for Glitter.

From here we tried to find what I call the Glitter Mine but I must have missed the trail because we never found it. Maybe next time.

We worked our way northwest taking several trails. Some of which were col-d-sac’s. Eventually we came to Plomosa Road. We turned southwest on Plomosa Road to where Quinn Pass trail goes west over a steep pass.
Here we turned east and followed a small trail into a narrow wash.

We took a side trail to check out this large Quartz outcrop.

People have been chipping away at this quartz outcrop for years as you can see by all the small pieces covering the ground around it.

Heading Home.

We left the outcrop and found a trail that headed back to Plomosa Road. When we got to the highway we aired up and headed for home.

Supper at Grubb’s

We made plans to meet everyone at The Grubstake Social Club for supper at 5:00. Joy and Robert also joined us.
The place was busy, there was only one waitress and she was brand new to the job. As a result we were there for two hours.
From Grubb’s we went to Becky and Dennis’ to play cards.
We got home around 10:30.

It was a long day but a good one  I love driving around in our beautiful desert.