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| Hiking | 16.00 Miles |
2,615 AEG |
| | Hiking | 16.00 Miles | | | |
| 2,615 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | The day started out rather badly for this hike (planned as an out and back overnight) - the description I had was inaccurate on how to find the trailhead, and I wasted a lot of time driving around a campground with people in RVs staring at me. Strike 2 - The very nice lady at the visitor center looked alarmed and firmly told me that they "did not recommend" going down the rings in Banshee Canyon. Strike 3 - It was very windy, which did not bode well for balancing through steep canyon downclimbs with a full pack, plus the struggle of fighting the wind all day. Well, I've always been a sucker for a hard luck case, so I proceeded to stuff everything in my pack and set off down the trail. 
Straight away, the trail dropped into Banshee Canyon, which was flipping awesome! It was windy enough that I got to experience first-hand how it got that name - the wind really howls through the pockmarked volcanic rock. I'd never seen volcanic rock that looked so much like sandstone with all the smoothed windows and alcoves. Climbing down the metal rings in the canyon was an interesting challenge, and also a bit of a squeeze with my pack on. At the bottom, I dropped my pack just to climb back up the short canyon for a bit more exploring.
Coming out of the canyon, I started looping west around Barber Butte, which is a lovely volcanic butte with extensive gardens of barrel cacti spreading up the slopes. Hiking in a wash, I encountered a group of ~8 feral horses so tame they refused to move as I hiked toward them. I actually had to leave the trail and hike around those silly horses! Continuing around the butte, the trail heading north along the ridge above a major wash. This ridge was also covered with barrel cacti, huge Mojave yuccas, and tons of cholla - certainly the vegetation encouraged you to stay on the trail. The trail continued to climb through the loose jumble of boulders, and I couldn't help but wonder why it didn't follow the much easier looking wash. After dropping up and over and down into the wash, I discovered why - the wash had a sand-filled concrete dam in a narrow section. Too bad, the short volcanic narrows looked like it would have been a fun side trip.
Now, I was in a thin pinon-juniper forest, but soon hit a large burn. At first, the trail continued along a few 2-tracks (all appeared rarely used) and was almost amusingly oversigned. Shortly, the trail branched off from the road and started climbing up through low, indistinct hills. The signs became fewer and fewer as the trail became more and more difficult to pick out. Obviously, this was not a frequently traveled trail, footprints don't last long in rough granitic soils, and the heavy burn didn't exactly help. It became increasingly open, the wind picked up even more, and odd formations of granitic boulders began to appear. The formations became larger as the trail continued a gradual climb, until the boulder piles reminded me of Joshua Tree NP, but without any Joshua trees. After a quick side-trip to the abandoned Gold Star Mine, I continued up to the high point of the trail. The views were quite nice from here, although localized. Starting down the other side, the trail soon left the granitic boulder piles behind and became pretty boring. Take that back - really boring - miles of hiking slightly downhill toward nothing in particular through a giant burn. Drove me crazy along with the ever-increasing wind, and that's when I decided to give up on the idea of spending the night out there.
Turned around immediately upon reaching the trailhead at Mid Hills and headed back. Hit Banshee Canyon again just before sunset, which was perfect. The major downside was that I carried all my backpacking stuff and didn't even stay out.
I would ceratinly do this trail again, in part. It would be much nicer to combine Barber Loop Trail and the part of this trail until the granitic boulder piles, then back out through Banshee Canyon. |
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| "Let it ride / Let it roll / Let it go" |
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