|
| | | |
| |
|
| Hiking | 5.50 Miles |
600 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.50 Miles | | | |
| 600 ft AEG | | | | |
|
|
| |
| Partners |
|
[ show ]
| partners | | Estimating on mileage and AEG - I think we covered about that much territory. Lots of stuff off of trails or along old roads, not much with any real planning involved. It was nice to just wander in the open grasslands for a while after my trip deep in the canyon.
We drove in Friday night and made camp in a large, flat, oak filled glen which we couldn't believe wasn't already the camp of the deer hunters which had taken every other good spot. We realized our error just a couple of hours into our campfire, when the Phoenix Climbing Meetup started to arrive. They were polite, quiet and all - but there were a lot of them, and my dogs just wouldn't leave them alone. After an evening of barking and pawing at the tent walls, we decided to move on to another camp in the morning.
We drove about on the forest roads, finding spot after spot already housing groups of eager campers. It was busy weekend! We stopped off at Council Rocks and spent a little over an hour exploring the massive boulders, rock grottoes and dry washes of that area. Tons of fun. At one particularly large balanced boulder, Lilo and Monty ran up first, then ran down again to the unmistakable tune of a rattlesnake. At least I can trust them to keep as far from those things as they can! Our buddy Dennis, who is a herp nut, squeezed himself into the space between the rocks to get a good photo of the snake. He's a nut - but he really knows what he's doing. Sarae, the dogs and I stayed safely on the ground below.
We drove back into West Stronghold Canyon, and after a bit of searching found a delightful little campsite which had been hidden by the spent weeds of summer. Just a little clearing and we were set. Although it was crowded in the canyon, our spot was completely visually isolated - and we only heard the other campers when their pack of dogs started barking. Perfect!
Dennis headed off to find more reptiles, and Sarae and I wandered up and down a couple of the canyons just beyond the trailhead. We'd been told that there was water up in one of them, and though we found it, we wished we'd been told from the start that it was stank, nasty stuff we were looking for 
We headed back to camp, but I felt like my hiker was just getting warmed up, so I continued along a couple of forest roads, along the western face of the hill, with superb views down into the valley and across to the Whetstone Mountains. It was a spectacular sunset. I arrived back in camp just in time for campfire, dutch-oven stew and great cocktails. Top it off with a point-perfect smore and a couple of very tired puppies and you've got a day well spent.
I love camping. Anyone who wants more than that outta life is just plain evil. |
| _____________________
-----------------------------------
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.- Barack Obama |
| | |
|
|
|
Route Editor
Route Scout
it was everything I thot it would be and more.
.
.
