Anza Borrego Oct 24-25

Opting for a quick and easy weekend escape, and getting excited for desert season to get started, we snagged a campsite at Agua Caliente and drove out to the desert mid-Saturday morning. Looking for leisure and not the usual rough and tumble badlands exploration hikes I do in the area, I identified a few moderately interesting sounding hikes in the general vicinity of Agua Caliente. As we crested the saddle out of Earthquake Valley we turned off the road in Blair Valley, the first of several strange broad hanging valleys where sediment fills to a saddle and then spills over, eventually reaching the lowlands of Carrizo Valley. The meadow was a bright green and the flanking road had some surprisingly deep mud pits to bypass. The rest of the road across Blair Valley was fairly deep sand and I appreciated the extra cohesion from the recent rains. We worked our way past and following many many campervans, assuming that everyone in San Diego owned or aspired to own one. It was a beautiful Fall day. 

We started at the Marshal South Home Trailhead where I almost immediately spotted a tarantula cruising along. We worked our way up the trail climbing nearly 500ft over 0.6 miles. It was a beautiful Fall day with crisp blue skies, puffy clouds, and shadows shifting across the landscape. The desert plants, particularly the ocotillos, were looking healthy and happy after the recent rains and undoubtedly months of hardship. The trail ended at Yaquitepec, site of a bizarre experiment where an author and his family tried to live off the land on one of the most inhospitable, dry, wind-swept, sun-baked ridges I could imagine. There was little left to show other than a couple concrete water cisterns, a rusty bedframe, and fragments of adobe wall seemingly poorly made with the local grus. It was odd but the real star of the hike was the ever-changing light, choice desert vegetation along the way, and the view from Ghost Mountain over its mysterious landslides into Vallecito Valley to the south and Blair Valley to the north. 

Back at the car we drove further east for a second short hike, this one about 1.3 miles over a saddle into another hanging valley, past a prominent pictograph rock, and to the dramatic dryfall of Smuggler Canyon draining into Carrizo Valley. Once again the clouds and shadows delighted. The pictographs were in interesting textile-like patterns in a red ochre and a more subtle yellow. Dstretch enhanced images did a good job revealing that there was much more than initially met the eye, including many glyphs nearly completely washed away by time. We turned around at the dryfall and worked our way back to the car and then the pavement to drive on to our campsite.

It was about 5pm when we got situated into our narrow campsite; thankfully our neighbors were minimally obnoxious. Funnily enough I realized that South Coast Geological Society was having their annual field trip here at the same time; I recognized some familiar faces but was not feeling altogether that social. We ate dinner, drank mini-canned margaritas, and sat out on the pool deck waiting for the indoor hot pool to reopen at 6pm. As we sat we got a nice silhouetted view of kids running up and down a ridge in the middle of the campground with sunset colors and a glowing moon beyond. We enjoyed an ample amount of soaking in the hot pool remarkably chill for a Saturday night, and left to get cozy at our campsite once a slightly louder crowd began appearing.

We had a leisurely morning and went for a brief soak before leaving the campground. We drove south just past the Arroyo Tapiado turnoff and took the short spur road west to the Mountain Palm Springs Trailhead. Here we did a neat 3 mile loop past several named palm groves - Pygmy Grove, Southwest Grove, Surprise Canyon Grove, Palm Bowl Grove, North Grove. Dry rocky washes were interspersed with stands of trees, wet sand and buzzing bees occasionally hinting at water just beneath the surface. It was calm. We had the whole hike to ourselves. The densest grove, Southwest Grove, was the only one where we actually saw a standing pool of water. Today was considerably warmer than the previous day so the shade of the palms was actually appreciated. From here we took the cross-country poled route over to the next wash to the north.

We walked through Surprise Canyon Grove and dodged thorny shrubs to gain the Palm Bowl Grove which stood the most separate from the rest. After a brief snack in the shade we hiked down the wash past North Grove and back to the car. It was a surprisingly pleasant hike overall with a nice variety of sights for such a short hike.

After our hike we stopped at Casa de Pico in Grossmont for my favorite mango avocado red pepper quesadillas, and then the road back home. Thanks to Heather for a nice mellow getaway with some new sights.

WF San Gabriel Biking Oct 18

It has been a dry year for me as far as boating with only about 60 miles of paddling this year. With a supposed monster El Nino beginning to take shape, Heather and I thought it seemed like a good idea to do some pre-season scouting and clearing of a local river with the hopes that the investment could mean several laps of higher quality boating later. As we drove along the highway up the main San Gabriel Canyon, we could not help but notice that every pullout had a disheveled car parked, altogether representing perhaps a hundred people living out of their cars in the grey area of national forest just outside of Los Angeles. Although the East Fork of the San Gabriel is arguably our more standard run, this seemed like a good opportunity to bring bikes along the paved (but gated so virtually untrafficked) road that closely parallels the West Fork up to Cogswell Dam. I gave Heather my gravel ebike while I burdened myself with my gimpy mountain bike. Upon arriving we were both surprised to see the West Fork flowing much more than we expected. It was not boatable but clearly they were releasing water from the dam upstream.

The parking lot was half full but all things considered it was a pleasant bike ride which we had mostly to ourselves. After the start there were several groups of people fishing, a couple hunters, a few people biking, and later at the campground a few people camping. As we crossed the pedestrian bridge we immediately noticed the many rock and log dams people had put across the river to form swimming holes- these I hoped would get blast out by the first strong rains so I focused my attention more on noting the locations of logjams, tree sieves, and face-scratching brush patches in the river. While there were still plenty of obstacles, we both noted that overall the river seemed to be much cleaner, with the preexisting logjams near the two bridges now cleared. Between the fresh pavement, greenery, and cool Fall temperatures, it was a thoroughly pleasant bike ride. 

We worked our way all the grade of the river 2.5 miles past our typical put-in, continuing past the old bait club hut (the furthest I had been before), past Glenn Trail Camp, and then away from the river up to the elevation of the Cogswell Dam (7 miles from our start). From the helipad area we could just barely make out the rock covered earthen dam upstream. The slight downhill grade made for nice leisurely travel back down, with me stopping intermittently to mark features on my map. A short detour took us to two very pleasant waterfalls at Butterfield Canyon with a natural pothole pool in between. 

The rest of the way back continued pleasant. We stopped to clear some logs from a prominent and typically troublesome rapid below Bear Creek. I managed to clear several logs that should make this section runnable. With the bikes loaded back up at the car, we made another stop to check out another frequently troublesome rapid below the highway. This too I was surprised to see had naturally cleaned itself up considerably; with a little more work and cutting I freed it for what should be runnable section. The result was that there should be a 7.6 mile stretch of the West Fork that should be mostly runnable when flows rise; maybe 6 portages, 4 log sieves, 6 face-scratching brushy sections, and about 5 sections we could not see from the road (altogether potentially pretty high quality whitewater for southern California. Now let's just hope the water arrives and the river does not clog itself further!

We briefly drove up the East Fork and up to the end of Shoemaker Road, deciding not to look around further after a view of Mt Baldy and the Bridge Fire wasteland. It was nice to get out for a short jaunt and feel like Fall had finally arrived.

Around Cedar City Sept 29-Oct 2

 

My plans for an ambitious Lake Powell hiking/canyoning/packrafting loop were canceled fairly last minute when we realized that pretty much all the roads in the area will be washed out for quite some time as a result of the over-active monsoon season the southwest has been having this year. Fortunately, I was able to pivot pretty quickly to a trip to Cedar City for mineral collecting and fall colors with Ryan. As a bonus I would finally get to meet his UV light friend Bill and partner Rachel. Quite unusually I had rain much of the way across Nevada. As I drove through its gorge, the Virgin River was a chocolatey mess that had me wishing I brought a packraft. Eventually I arrived in late afternoon, giving us a chance to head out for some afternoon scouting at the Desert Mound pit (aka the toilet bowl) and tailings piles where we did not find too much of interest. We then drove further on to check out a few roadside tailings at Iron Mountain (more promising with some magnetite and apatite) and then drove to the top for a stellar view of the surrounding desert. We poked around at some of the summit diggings before being chased away by rain. We had a nice social evening.

The next day we started around midday with a wildcard option of driving south to check out some old mines at Silver Reef near Hurricane. Somewhere here (10 mile radius...) there was supposed to be an occurrence of hydrozincite and calcite that made very showy UV specimens but the geology did not really seem to match this type of mineralization and we did not see much more than some copper stains. A day and a half in, I had surprisingly few rocks to show for all the looking. We drove back towards Iron Mountain to check out a hillside quarry we were interested in. This proved to be one of the most interesting sites we visited with an enormous 150 ft high cut face exposing some breccia filled in with magnetite veins and pockets. We found interesting calcite crystals, magnetite crystals, lilac/pink fluorescing apatite, and Ryan found several stellar gemmy apatite crystals to 1.5" loose on the scree slopes. We had fun collecting here but never returned at night which I am sure would be the real reveal. Dinner at the Chinese buffet in town and then more UV mineral collecting at the "saddle" locality of the Armstrong Mine tailings. This surprised us with fantastic multicolor specimens.

Coming off a particularly late night with a UV mineral collecting hangover, our plans for the third day materialized slowly but eventually settled on a big day of an 8.5 hour trip into a deep mine, then more post-dark UV collecting. I packed and organized as efficiently as I could. This was my second time into this mine, this time going deeper down to the 850' level. The shattered timbers, collapsed shafts, vertical ladders with missing rungs held together with nails and occasionally paracord, dizzying downward views of hundreds of feet, and boxes of dynamite still left a strong impression, even if some of the first-time fear and adrenaline was quieter this time. As before I was thoroughly impressed by the complexity of the mine, sketchy chaos, well-preserved mining artifacts, and dazzling ore minerals. A highlight for me was exploring the attic area at the 350' level that had some of the most incredible multi-colored and multi-patterned rock I have ever seen. This time around it took us nearly 3 hours to carefully climb back up the network of ladders, the mid-ladder squeezes being much more notable obstacles on the way out. Really just an incredible place overall. 

After exiting the mine under the stars, we walked back to the car and drove on to check out two more UV mineral locales. A little north of the Harrington-Hickory Mine, we scoured hillsides and tailings for bright blue fluorescing hydrozincite, sometimes with bright orange calcite and neon green chalcedony. We then checked out the Rebel Mine, which had some incredible day-glo orange calcite and calcite-aragonite brecciated crystal pockets. The collecting was great but I easily lost enthusiasm around 2am. We stopped in at a remote 24 hour diner, clearly disappointing the bleary-eyed employee working the graveyard shift. After a meal it was more driving, a shower to remove the thick layer of dust and grim, and then a hard crash into bed.

The last day we had another slow start owing to our previous big day and night. We sorted out our rocks and pressure washed them clean on the driveway. 285 lbs ended up being my final tally to bring back home. In the late afternoon all four of us piled into Bill's truck and drove through Cedar City, up Cedar Canyon, and up onto the 10000' elevation Markagunt Plateau for some fall color leaf peeping. We stopped at the roadside Duck Lake for some fiery reflections (frontispiece), then onto the west side of Navajo Lake where Ryan and I flew our drones over the colorful aspens. With the light nearly played out here, we drove on to the east side of the lake for another flight over the aspens interspersed with conifers and lava. I had been wanting to see a good fall color show for some time and this happily scratched that itch.

In the morning we loaded up and said our goodbyes, everyone headed out three different directions. I huge thanks to Ryan for hosting a few fun days of fossicking, Rachel for hospitality, and Bill for driving us around. For Plan B it was a great and sorely needed getaway before I plunge into the meat of the academic quarter.

Kelso Dunes Sept 25-26

 

Another quick solo getaway out to the Mojave, I leave the photos to do most of the talking. I had great clouds, a bright full moon, and a quiet night. Eventually the temperatures cooled to pleasant.

In the morning I hiked barefoot to the top of the tallest point in the Kelso dunefield, a more strenuous exercise than I anticipated. I enjoyed the wide variety of tracks along the way including sidewinders. I enjoyed the vast views while catching my breath at the summit as well as triggering some sand avalanches and getting the sand to bark with big jumps. Going down was effortless. 

I got a few nice views of crags as I drove past the Granite Mountains along the Kelbaker Road. It was a quick trip but some nice sights.

Bristol Mountains Sept 15-16

 

Craving a quick desert escape despite punishing heat, I packed Spartan to go visit a rock collecting site I was last at when I was 18. It was also a chance to stretch my new Subaru's offroad muscles a bit. I left pavement in the afternoon near Ludlow, drove north towards Broadwell Dry Lake, then turned east on a pleasantly graded powerline/pipeline road. There wasn't a lick of shade but distant puffy clouds. Eventually the road turned very sandy, having me test the deep snow/mud Xmode, which helped but also was less responsive than I expected. Sections were two-rutted in deep sand such that I could not stop and had to maintain speed to avoid getting stuck; it reminded me of the old Disneyland Autopia ride where the track was essentially driving me and the steering wheel served no purpose. Thankfully the sand abated and the road improved. I was treated to nice views of the Kelso Dunes once I breached the saddle and began a gradual descent into the broad basin. It was a punishing 104F when I stepped out of the car and began my hike up the wash to the old strawberry onyx mine that I used to love collecting at with my dad when I was a kid.

Arriving at the mine camp, I was delighted to see the unusual flat-roofed mining shack was not only still standing, but actually had been repaired since my previous visit when I was 18. It is a novel design, made of stacked railroad ties with a chickenwire-concrete roof. I had very little recollection of the onyx collecting area itself, so enjoyed walking over the nearby hillside looking at the discarded rocks and outcrops. It is still a mysterious deposit with a roughly 2 acre deposit of layered carbonate tilted about 25 degrees to the southwest, seemingly bounded by pyroclastic volcanic rocks on all sides. My best guess from a cursory look is some sort of surficial hydrothermal deposit with an algae/cyanobacteria component based on some of the rock textures. Anyway I was mostly distracted by the beautiful banded strawberry onyx, which was focused in two bands. It was nice to see there was plenty of material scattered around to enjoy.

Note same corner as photo below

Self-processed and printed B&W from when I was 18

I caught a beautiful sunset from the top of the onyx hill looking northeast towards the Kelso Dunes (frontispiece). After dark I was delighted to look around the onyx area with a UV light, discovering at least a half-dozen scorpions in the process. A subset of the honey-colored onyx had a vivid emerald green fluorescence that was fun to look for. It seemed I could potentially have been the first person that thought to search this site for UV rocks. I killed a good chunk of the night just looking around and enjoying the cooler nighttime temperatures before cowboy camping in the nearby wash.

In the morning I looked around a bit more and then headed out before the heat of the day set in. It was a quick but rewarding escape with a nice combo of nostalgia, a light solo adventure, and some neat rocks. A bit premature but had me excited to do some more desert exploring this winter.