Stravaging
Feb. 10, 2018

Woo-hoo!  Thanks to my friend Crystal, I now know that I stravaged in the desert recently.  In fact, I find that I have stravaged multiple times in many places and not only that, I have every intention of stravaging whenever and wherever my heart takes me.

Crystal occasionally presents me with a "new" word; in this case, it is new only to us, having been around for a couple hundred years at least.  The online dictionary tells us the word was originally spoken in Scotland, Ireland and northern England and refers to strolling, sauntering or wandering aimlessly.

In my previous post, I aligned myself with naturalist John Muir when I eschewed "hiking" in favor of "sauntering", so now I can take my choice of that or stravaging.  I hereby declare myself to be a devoted stravager, which activity I can alternate with sauntering - don't see how it could be any better than that!

Warmer climes . . .

The unseasonable winter we are experiencing has allowed us to be comfortably out and about at will; however, we also like to take advantage of not-so-hot times in the desert to afford a change of scenery while stravaging, which led us to a recent drive to the desert.

Down Bumble Bee way (for those who may be unfamiliar with Arizona place names, it's a waystop between Prescott and Phoenix, not an insect), we went in pursuit of an adventure.  Wait!  What's that odd sound?  Drat - a flat!  Ruby began a slight limp as her left rear tire hissed away its air, so we pulled off the main road to deal with it, the main road in this case being a washboardy dirt road with a plethora of jaggedy rocks protruding from its surface.

As the señor began his ministrations toward repairing Ruby's gimp, I assessed my value as an assistant.  As he had the situation well in hand, it appeared that my choices were to: 1. Offer advice (ha - we all know how that goes!), 2. Wring my hands and gnash my teeth over the injustice of it all (somewhat satisfying, but relatively useless in any sort of constructive way), or 3. Avail myself of the opportunity to have an explore of the nearby countryside. 

Not too difficult to figure out which I chose.  We were in the desert: not much out of the ordinary to peruse, I thought, but why not saunter on up that little rise over yonder and see what I could see.  And there, much to my astonishment was a whole passel of prehistoric rock art!

This site is located right next to the road to Bumble Bee, along which I have traveled countless times during my life - an unprepossessing spot where I would never have expected to see such, but nevertheless, there it was.

The large rock in the photo below has cracked and fallen backwards to mostly cover additional petroglyphs on another boulder.  A section of those are peeking out from under the upper rock.

Despite destroying the tire (no, it was not repairable; a rock had separated the tread) and having to replace it, we were grateful that we were led to that interesting place that we would not have seen otherwise.

With a spare in place, I was hesitant to venture further on our drive lest a second flat leave us without a way to get home, but at least we could explore on foot from there and that is what we did.

Immediately to the south of us was a wash that led off toward the eastern flank of the foothills of the Bradshaw Mountains.  It seemed as good a route as any, and I always enjoy walking in dry water courses except when the surface is deep sand that requires hard slogging.  In this case, the footing was easy with enough sand to reveal critter footprints and enough rock to keep it interesting.

The very dry winter has left prickly pear cactus in the region as desiccated as I've ever seen them - sad pads shriveled to nearly nothing.

Our route took us higher and higher to allow some lovely vistas of the forested mountains beyond.

Eventually, we crossed a trail that was one we had read about: the Black Canyon Trail that wanders through those lower regions and seems to be utilized primarily by bicyclists.  Until then, we hadn't know exactly where that track was.

Extensive mining activity has left its mark in the Bradshaws and the surrounding countryside.  It's a rockhounder's paradise with an amazing variety of mineralized specimens . . .

. . . and plenty of open shafts into which the unwary could fall . . . or the fool-hardy could do as Chris is doing in the photo below - scooching as close as possible to teeter on the slippy-slidey graveley brink for reasons unknown to his wife who was loudly admonishing him while photographing him in case the edge gave way and he went in and she needed proof later that she didn't push him.

The remnant of a thistle seedhead . . . or an alien being searching for water.

Turkey Creek . . .

Re-tired (in more ways than one - we replaced Ruby's wrecked tire before heading out on another foray to the low country), Chris pointed us toward a place he has long wanted to explore.  Seems that when he has led Yavapai College Edventures groups down to the Bumble Bee/Cleator region, he has been intrigued by the Turkey Creek canyon.  It sounded as good as any to me, so we chose another in a pretty much uninterrupted string of incredible days to venture that way.

In my younger days oh so long ago, that country was pretty much devoid of human activity; unfortunately, such is no longer the case.  It has become an ATVer's paradise brimming and buzzing with all manner of vehicles manufactured for the crazed-of-heart who tend to tear through the countryside with billowing plumes of dust in their wake.

You may discern from that description that my preference would be not to share my solitude with those of a more internal-combustion-engine mentality; walking in a watery narrow rocky canyon would be just the ticket to get away from it all, we thought.   

That theory held up for a spell, at least, but before too long, we caught the sound of revving engines up ahead of us.  Innocents that we are, we figured there must be dirt bikes up ahead, or in this case, they might be mud bikes.

As we proceeded, we saw that, however unlikely, there were peoples in Jeeples in that canyon with us.   The vehicle in the lead of the trio appeared to have gotten himself into a predicament out of which only a helicopter could rescue him.  Quite a crowd was gathered to watch his extrication attempts; the watchers' Jeeples were blocked and certainly weren't going anywhere with him in the way.

We stopped to watch the shenanigans and I engaged some of the fellow peoples in Jeeples in conversation.  Said I, "We've gotten ourselves into some pretty dire predicaments, but this takes the cake," intending a bit of commiseration.  Said the Jeeple people, "Yeah, but we do it on purpose."  What?!  Who knew there are folks who view a boulder-strewn chasm as a motoring challenge!

At any rate, I would have bet good money that vehicle was never getting out of that plight (or opportunity, depending on how you view these things).  Pretty fascinating to watch them work the puzzle: deflating selected tires (see below) and re-airing them strategically.

Didn't take long until we tired of watching millimeters of progress with the backward and forward attempts to traverse a place that is suited only for foot traffic and water, and away we went.

Although we were sure we had seen the last of that crazed trio, they passed us much farther up the canyon.  I'm thinking I should have stuck around to watch them all get through that gorge.  Cannot imagine how they accomplished it.

Our attempts to leave humankind behind for the day were for nought.  Near the confluence with a larger creek, we turned upstream from where a couple of fellers were panning for gold. 

Presumably, there were members of the Roadrunner Prospecting Club that has claims posted thereabouts.

Finally leaving behind fellow adventurers, we came upon these two young calves.  I was concerned they had been orphaned; their mother was nowhere in evidence in the area.  I got the señor to call a nearby rancher later so they could be checked on.

The babies would not perish of thirst at least: although the wash bottom was not running, there were plenty of places with sufficient standing water.

As we proceeded on our way up a fairly wide section of the canyon, we were amazed at the saguaros.  Unlike the sere prickly pears we saw not far from there, these giants were as healthy and magnificent specimens as you could ever imagine, and in such abundance as is seldom seen.

Not surprisingly, we encountered ample evidence of mining activity long over: rocky rubble and artifacts left behind when the pay dirt played out.

A side canyon caught our attention; it seemed a likely to route to explore and so we veered off the main drainage and began to climb.  As in the photo below, it looked like a short rock scramble upward that would bring us to open country.  The reality was substantially different.  Each climb up dry waterfalls led to a short flattish stretch and then yet another waterfall, and on and on it went up many beautiful rock ledges - huge on-end outcroppings of slate that easily crumbled away at the touch of a hand.  Numerous times, we thought we were topping out only to encounter another ledge to climb.

What unimaginable forces there must be to torture the rock in such a way!

Eventually, we found ourselves high enough to see the mountains beyond…

. . . and a very intriguing distant ledge of spires that I would like to check out another day.  This one did not contain enough daylight to get there and back.

Our little saunter had covered a goodly number of miles in, thus leaving us with a goodly number of miles out, but the day was as pleasant as could be asked and the desert views stunning enough that we took a couple of side treks to check out more mine shafts and other sights.

At least this one had a fence of sorts around it.

The birds and bees . . .

Some casual birding netted us some nice species that we wouldn't normally get around Prescott.  Some of those we spotted were cardinal, American pipit, verdin, rock wren, canyon wren, black-throated sparrow, ruby-crowned kinglet, Gila woodpecker and curve-billed thrasher.

The little burg of Bumble Bee has begun to rebrand itself, although I have to wonder just why the few locals would welcome all those noisy city folks kicking up billows of dust and intruding on the previously peaceful desert atmosphere.

The historic schoolhouse appears to now be a private residence, so I tried not to be intrusive with my photograph, and besides, by then I was bushed, so a quick shot from the car seemed just the ticket.