We took a morning kid-venture to a few of the Arroyo Tapiado mud caves, a short dirt road drive away from the Agua Caliente campground. We stretched our legs at Round Room Falls, then drove further up the wash. We went into Plunge Pool Cave which was surprisingly cool; a serpentine passage led to a cathedral-like dryfall plunge room with a dramatic skylight. We explored briefly up the kid-sized side-branch before returning and hiking up the intermittent Big Mud Cave. This had some nice scenic moments and we walked a fair way up the canyon until it began to open. On the way back we popped into Footprint Cave, then returned the way we came. It was a short jaunt; someday I'd like to have a thorough explore of this interesting area.
We had lunch and a swim back at camp then set out for the surprisingly long drive to The Slot. The parking lot was overflowing with probably 40 cars and lots and lots of people. It certainly wasn't ideal but nevertheless we were able to find the wider spots to pass people or be passed. I had always been down and back but we managed to find a steep, lightly worn path that we could use to loop up out of the canyon and then follow the 4WD road back to the parking lot. I then left the others to the rest of their trip and drove back fairly uneventfully.
A hot tip from a friend suggested the recently reactivated mud pots near Mullet Island might be worth a packraft visit. I have been to the better known roadside Schrimpf & Davis mud pots several times but those have more recently died down and gained no trespassing signs. There are several different mud pot areas on the southern shore of the Salton Sea all related to the unusually high geothermal gradient and extensional region where the San Andreas Fault and Brawley Seismic Zone meet. The shallow water table and boiling carbonated waters lead to scale models of volcanic phenomena including vents, calderas, spatter cones, and lava-like mud flows.
We slowly navigated the rectilinear agricultural roads around out bridges to finally arrive at my best guess of the "new" mud pots approach. The overland route was aggressively signed as no trespassing but ponds nearby and the mud pot area itself were public lands. We started with a lengthy drone scout that confirmed it could be approached by water by a long, mostly boring paddle. The mud pot area revealed itself to be more extensive and more active than I had guessed. It looked really cool from the area. Carefully I drone scouted a boat landing, then sent the drone back. It took some convincing on Heather's part to decide the sticky alkalic mud was worth braving to check out the natural wonder in person. Slowly my enthusiasm grew to activation level and we readied the boats.
We paddled across the sizable lake in about 40 minutes to find the hidden 15 foot wide channel connecting to the next pond. A couple notable things happened at this next pond. We saw a large flotilla of diverse duck species hanging out on the pond; it was not until we were about a hundred feet away that we realized they were intricately painted decoys and not a single duck moved in this still life scene!
We found the even smaller gap (boat width), which led to the final shallow pond. As we entered this channel large carp skimmed the surface of the opaque waters occasionally bumping it our boat and aggressively thrashing beneath it in an unsettling way. We ended up pulling our way through this gap using the reeds and then giving up to walk. We tried to paddle across the final pond but eventually decided it was too shallow for suitable progress and walked our boats across as our feet plunged into the squishy mud.
As we got closer to the mud pot area we noticed the water dramatically warming. After about an hour approach total, we reached the muddy shore. The area of boiling mud was very impressive! Some mud was being tossed ten feet into the air. Slurps, gurgles, and hisses completely surrounded us. Between the abundant hot spots and wanting to minimize footprints in the soft mud (of which there were surprisingly few), we limited exploration on foot and instead used the drone to get the best views inside the mud volcanoes and above the boiling fields.
The shapes, patterns, colors, and activity was mesmerizing and it was easy to use 30 minutes of drone battery exploring, filming, and photographing the mud pot field. We could certainly so so much more from the air than we could on foot. I had great difficulty in narrowing down photo choices so I might as well let my photos speak for themselves.
As we were getting ready to leave a hunter strolled over to say hello. Friendly enough but seemed displeased we had found our way through the reeds to his secret hunting spot and requested the location wasn't shared. Also a hot tip: Tomorrow was the start of duck hunting season! That made a lot of sense with all the motorhomes and trailers we saw stationed nearby our car. It seemed we had timed our trip just right! This place would be crawling with guns in less than 24 hours. We paddled back without incident despite getting very muddy, bitten all over by mosquitoes, and having to plow through some reeds to bypass the hunter's boat parked in the reed gap between ponds. All the dirty stuff in the car, we drove on to the Agua Caliente campground. All in all it was a really neat geologic wonder to experience and I am glad we rallied to check it out, even despite the two hours of subsequent cleaning I had to contend with. Thanks to Sara for the suggestion.
This was my fourth trip working at my long term goal of finding a "floor is lava" route through the Wonderland of Rocks. I got dropped off at Barker Dam by Heather and kids a little before 10 am and quickly sped down the washes to where I left off last time. The parking lot was full but minutes from the trailhead it would be hours until I saw someone again. I spent about 2 hours frantically working my way through 1.5 miles of Joshua Tree jungle gym. I long jumped gaps onto precarious rocks, carefully stemmed around sharp yuccas, gingerly climbed down slots. Several times I had to backtrack but for 1.5 miles I managed to find some way that avoided loose sand and soil and kept me on rocks. After 2 hours I found myself tired and well into the middle of nowhere and so transitioned back to hiking the fastest route possible. I made great time over the Rattlesnake Canyon talus cave and to the car at Indian Cove 5 minutes earlier than the agreed upon 2 pm. It was easily my quickest trip through the Wonderland and I was suitably exhausted. I have now confirmed 3.1 miles can be done but have roughly an additional 3.7 miles yet to go to realize my full traverse. If possible it is an intimidating feat, full of a marathon's worth of physical and mental challenge. Hopefully I'll get another chance to tackle it soon.
A drive up though a smoky Central Valley to take eight hours of tests in Sacramento wasn't top of my list of desirable things to do, but at least I managed to tack on a visit to friends and a solo packraft trip down California's most reliable whitewater run, the dam released South Fork American. I had previously run the first five miles from Chili Bar to Marshall Gold Discovery State Park as an adventure hangover activity after running Class V Fordyce Creek. The full run (Chili Bar, Coloma to Greenwood, The Gorge) would be 20.5 miles of Class II-III+, which I thought would be fine on my own as long as I could figure out my shuttle. 1500 cfs seemed like a nice enough flow. I got to the Skunk Hollow parking lot at the end of the run bright and early and waited hoping for other groups that would be doing the full river trip. Eventually one raft group showed up but they were very full on the way up and said they wouldn't have room. Around 9:15a I gave up and started driving to Chili Bar. In a few minutes I passed a raft laden car driving the other way and took a guess they might be setting a shuttle. I U-turned and was correct but they also did not have room. On to Chili Bar!
Chili Bar was pretty busy with rafts loading up, kayakers, and IKs. I think I might have sold a couple packrafts to some IKers and kayakers while I was getting ready to launch. It is crazy to me that they are still a novelty somehow. Anyway the water was surprisingly warmer than expected. I put on at 10:30a and made great time down the river. In an hour I was already at Troublemaker Rapid (frontispiece); despite 9 named rapids before this was somehow the first notable one. I enjoyed my run so much I decided to carry my boat back up and have a second go at it.
Coloma to Greenwood had a noticeably more relaxed crowd with kids in whitewater kayaks clearly learning or taking lessons. I paddled through most of the flats and ended up passing many people. The two highlights were watching surfboarders and play boats on the great surf wave (above) just down from Camp Lotus, and the plethora of mini-pumpkins randomly scattered on rocks the whole way through the run, presumably to entertain kids with a scavenger hunt.
At Greenwood I was greatly surprised by the number of boaters. Here I thought Chili Bar was by far the most popular run but it seemed for both commercial and private boaters it was actually The Gorge run. The Gorge run started with a long slow pond of water of about a mile but then finally picked up steam. This run was rated a III while Chili Bar was rated a III+ but I thought the Gorge had far more rapids with a bit of bite. The Gorge was also the most scenic section, even having some somwhat gorge sections with bedrock on both sides of the river. Unfortunately the further downriver I went the worst the air quality was from fires. Satan's Cesspool was notable for a short steep plunge into two river-wide holes separated by a thin undulating plume. Shortly after my pacing put me with three young guys in IKs and I followed them (or they followed me) through several rapids. Each of the three of them had spectacular flips on the pseudo-lateral hole in Hospital Bar, which decreased my confidence. I paddled aggressively for the meat of it, stalled a little on the crest from the force, but managed to escape their fate.
Thankfully Folsom Lake was low which meant a nice flow brought me all the way to the takeout bridge. The whole 20.5mi run took me 4.5 hours which I thought was pretty respectable. I dried gear at the takeout and kept a watchful eye for people that looked like they were headed to Chili Bar. Most people had only run the Gorge so my options were limited (in fact, best I can tell two raft groups and myself were to only ones to run the full river). I ended up waiting quite a while (1.5hours?) before the first raft group showed up. Thankfully they were going to be light on clearing their shuttle so readily offered to take me this time. I had a nice drive chatting with them, one a geologist. By the time I got back to my car and hit the road unfortunately was going to be a push to make the full drive home. I ended up camping in Hungry Valley OHV area in a windy dusty lot as Mexican polka and ATVs blared until 2am.
