Tramping two wildernesses 
February 17, 2017

A while back, pre-busted-ankle (PBA), I set a goal of hiking all the wilderness areas in Arizona.  After all, a person can neglect a person's closer environment in favor of wandering the whole wide world, so it seemed a reasonable target.  The busted ankle got in the way of that for a goodly spell, but has healed sufficiently for back-country tramping.  Then there was that little eye set-back, requiring a much shorter hiatus; reasons/excuses/obstacles are now set aside and the hikes resume.

Because we landed in Ehrenberg, Arizona, which is the nearest community of any size (relatively speaking) to the Trigo Mountain Wilderness, we took a stroll over that way, having little idea of what we would encounter.

A rough dirt track brought us to a likely enough canyon for access to the mountains.  And yup, I was skeered on the way down into it - down slopes with loose gravel give me pause now that one of those has caused me such pain, so the señor lent a comforting hand and, in this case, my new walking stick provided extra stability.

Once we were within the confines of the canyon, we followed the route of Lopez Wash, winding between the wildly rugged cliffs.  The footing was mostly through deep sand and gravel, not unusual for a wash bottom, but very laborious.  Turned out to be quite a workout, but for all that, we traversed about two-and-a-half miles before the thought of the same distance slogging back out began to sound worrisome.

It was a hard five miles, my first long back-country trek since PBA, and I was near to tears by the end, but what an awesome feeling to be able to do it!

The canyons seemed to be completely arid.  Although we saw no sign of moisture, there was lots of deer and burro scat and some birds, including Gambel's quail, so it seems that there must be a water source somewhere in there.

It would not be a place to hike in the summertime, but the temps were fine for us.  By following the wash bottom, our gradient was fairly level.  The mountains were amazingly convoluted, mostly solid black rock swirled and whorled into bizarre shapes, pocked with caves and holes on cliffsides and windows at ridgetops.

New birds we identified there were verdin, ash-throated flycatcher, turkey vulture and blue-gray gnatcatcher.

Near our turnaround spot, the landscape hue changed dramatically, becoming a light sandy color.  Chris the geologist opined that the rock looked as if it might have been formed by a pyroclastic flow.  I smiled and nodded.

There I am trundling along, really more like slogging through the deep gravel that required many shoe-clearing stops.

One more time . . .

The Cibola Refuge being on our way home from the Trigo Mountains was just too tempting; we had to stop one more time for the Goose Loop and were so glad we did.

We just happened to pull up exactly at the time that multiple tidy formations of cranes were coming in for the night amidst a maelstrom of migratory turkey vultures vying for an evening roost.  That day was the first we've spotted vultures and there was the explanation: they had been away for the season.

There were far more cranes than before and many of them congregated closer to our vantage point, so of course I shot more pics.

Joshua tree . . .

While it seems unlikely that anyone would venture off hiking and somehow inadvertently end up in a wilderness area, we managed to do just that.  In fact, we didn't even know it until afterward.  Anyway, that trek did not count toward the Arizona wilderness goal: it was in California.

Because we had never been to Joshua Tree National Park and because it was close enough to drive to from Ehrenberg, we chose it as our destination for our final day out and about.  We had no idea that our jaunt would take us into an area of the Joshua Tree Wilderness.

The park is gigantic; our only viable option was the visitor's center nearest us and a hike out from there.  We soon knew that we would want to return at a later date for a more thorough exploration.  Oddly enough, the region we were in did not have any Joshua trees in it because the elevation is not conducive to their survival.  One has to wonder just why there is so much territory included in the Joshua Tree National Park if there are no Joshua trees therein; however, one wonders about many things that seem to be nonsensical.

The hike that we undertook begins at an oasis, in this case a site with sufficient water to allow a copse of palm trees to thrive, and terminates at an oasis.  I cannot from first-hand knowledge say just what the final terminus is like because I came to my senses in time to set my sail for our starting point.

At any rate, we trooped along for a beautiful six-mile round trip through truly beautiful landscape with striking distant views, even out to the distant Salton Sea.

The granite boulder formations are reminiscent of Prescott's Granite Dells.

It was when I had nearly exhausted myself and was certain that we had to be nearing our destination, the trail took us up a very steep section where we looked down on the continuing route through the canyon in the following photo and over the lip into an adjacent canyon, I finally had enough sense to call a halt to forward progress.

As it was, I was exhausted but upright and still cheerful (mainly because it was over), somewhat disappointed that we did not reach Lost Palms Oasis, but happy I did not have to be rescued.  It was not until we were far along on the route that Chris mentioned a fact I had failed to note: the hike is rated as "strenuous".  It was deceptively moderate for the early stretch, but became quite steep in places further on, with those slippery decomposed granite slopes.  I did more and more of them without the señor's assistance, gaining confidence as we went.

Hiking a relatively rough 11 miles in two days:  priceless, considering that I only began walking at all without "The Boot" three months ago.

Here we go with the reptiles again.  This handsome dude was in a battle royal with yet another handsome dude until the other handsome dude waved a white flag of surrender and departed rapidly from the battle field.  He has a rather fierce demeanor, in my opinion.

This was really exciting - I had never seen one before!  It is a chuckwalla, a very large lizard species.  We estimated this one at 16 inches in length.  He also looks rather cranky, but is primarily vegetarian and non-venomous.

We were quite taken with these begonia-like plants that were scattered on the sandy wash bottoms, even more so when we saw one in blossom.

This was easily the largest ocotillo I've ever seen.  It had branches that were twice the span of my fingers should I have been foolish enough to attempt wrapping my fingers around one of its branches.

Ya never know . . .

There were not a lot of people on the Lost Palms Oasis Trail, but those we encountered were certainly interesting.

First there was the nice young couple from Oregon, who were on a cross-country trip to her home of origin, High Point, South Carolina.  They were accompanied by a most well-behaved pup by the name of Tequila, who was not precisely on the trail.  He appeared to be quite content to peruse whence they came.

And then there was Tom.  Chris took one look at what he was carrying and asked him if he was headed out there to watch television.  Turns out the answer was far more intriguing: Tom is a major contributor to a website called xeno-canto, which is dedicated to sharing bird sounds from all over the world.  The contraption he was valiantly carting out to the hinterlands was to record bird calls for uploading to the web.

We had the sad news to impart that there was quite a dearth of avian life on the trail that day, possibly more abundant at the oasis, but he would never get to that before dark.

Rock wren, Bewick's wren, raven and American crow were the only new birds we ferreted out there; in fact, they were the only birds at all.

We were startled to see these snow-capped peaks ahead of us after driving across the desert and coming over the Chiriacco Summit, at only 1,700 feet in elevation.

The aerobatics and finesse of a crop duster are always a marvel to watch.  This one was often no more than six feet off the ground.

Chris' playing for the Valentine's Day dinner was well received . . .

. . . as was his music for the Friday night concert.