Friday we went into Wickenburg to the Desert Caballeros Western Museum, which celebrates Wickenburg's distinctly old west flavor. The main floor of the museum was dedicated to western artists, with permanent displays including pieces by Remington and Russell. There is also a featured artist display. On the lower floor, there are some well done period displays of both rural and urban homes. There are also some dioramas of wildlife.
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On Saturday, we went to the Vulture Mine, which opens its gates between 9:30 and 10:00 am Saturdays only for a 2 hour guided tour of the mine site. While we waited for it to open, we chatted with two couples from Okotoks in the next car. One of the ladies mentioned that sometimes they close if it is raining, as the roads and walks around the mine are dirt. It had rained overnight, and was still overcast, but only sprinkling occasionally. By 10:10, we hadn't seen any evidence of anyone coming to open the gates for the tour, so we left. It would have been nice of them to put up a sign if they weren't planning to do tours today so we wouldn't have to wait 45 minutes for nothing. On the bright side, the drive out to the mine, 12 miles south of Wickenburg, is very scenic. There are lots of trailers boon-docking in the blm area along this road, and a trail to Vulture Peak, so we may return here another year.
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Saturday night and Sunday were quite rainy. The first few rows of the RV park are tiered. To prevent water from running down from our tier to the one behind us, they have a ridge about a half a foot high. Consequently, it creates a bit of a ditch along the back of the site, which has a few inches of water in it. We spent the day inside doing some cleaning, and watching the Scotties.
Monday, we headed for the BLM land in Vicksburg, and found a better site than we had last time we were here, a shorter walk to the hills.
On Tuesday, John looked at the points of interest near here using the Arizona topo map, and created a 3 mile route to take us from below 1600 ft elevation to the
Black Cat Mine at 1840 ft in the hills toward the east. We followed the route across a series of washes to a point where the railway is against the edge of the hills. We walked along the track a short distance, but left it for an atv trail (which happens to be Black Cat Pass Road), because the tracks ahead were over a wash, and we didn't want to be caught where it would be difficult to get off. Good choice, as shortly after that, a train came by.
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| Arizona and California Railroad |
We continued on that trail until we got to the point where our route headed up a wash into the hills. Shortly after we rejoined our route, we saw a group of about 10 atv's heading down the wash, then up a trail to the south. We carried along a bit further, and noticed some concrete structures, where 2 more atv's were parked. We got to the structures, which were leaching tanks for the mine. Then we followed the atv trail, which wound along the hill up to the mine. A couple more atv's met us on our way up. We had walked just over 4 mi when we got to the mine.
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| Black Cat Mine shaft |
After looking at the tailings pile and the boarded over hole for the mine, we returned to the leaching tanks where we had lunch. After a break, we walked back down the wash. Rather than continuing further down to Black Pass Road, we decided to head over a shoulder between a couple of hills, a more direct route back to the trailer. That section wasn't too bad, but when we got over the shoulder, we started having to go down and up through washes. After slogging through a few of these, we rested for a bit in the shade of a pile of ties beside the railway. Then we crossed the railway to an atv trail beside the tracks. We followed it for a while, as it was much easier walking, but then the railroad and the trail turned away from our route back. Once again we were having to walk along wash edges to found a reasonable way down one side and back up the other. Joan was starting to feel tired, due to the roughness, and the heat (about 26c) so we found a nice tree to sit under, next to a road. We still had just under a mile back to the trailer, with more washes to cross, so John decided to head back to the trailer and bring the truck back to pick Joan up.
John drove up the road we were parked on , and then across toward the road Joan was at. However, the road turned into more of an atv trail, and after going through one wash where first the front of the truck scraped and then the back, and then got to another steep drop, where the trail followed an 'intermittent stream', decided to return to the trailer, and walked back to where Joan was. It's nice to have the GPS to mark places like this to find them again, rather than trying to remember the shape of particular trees or saguaros nearby. When he got back to the location, Joan wasn't there anymore, but was just in site along the road. She had laid down for a short nap under the tree, and when she woke up, was refreshed. She decided to walk up the road (which didn't go much farther in the other direction). Fortunately, she was still in sight, so we got together, then headed back to the trailer. Our 8 mile hike took us from just after 9 until about 4:30. Quite an adventure. It was sure nice to sit in the shade of our trailer enjoying mugs of cold coffee. We both got a bit of sunburn, as we don't where hats. This is the first time we have actually separated like this on a hike, so we learned some valuable lessons.
- taking half an hour to recover is better than splitting up.
- don't assume that just because an atv trail is marked as a road on the GPS it is the same all the way. Check the whole route of the road to see where it goes.
- if you do have to split up, have a pen and paper to leave a note if you decide to move.
- this is one case when having two phones would have been really useful.
The desert is relatively moist this year.
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| Prickly Pear Cactus with buds |
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| Moss in the desert |
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| Ocotillo with actual leaves |
Wednesday we decided to do a shorter hike, to check out the road to where Joan was yesterday. We walked the mile over to where she was on the 'road' when we came across to the trailer. The total distance was 4.4 mi, but only took 2 hours, since most of it was on a track, instead of scrambles. Even though the truck could have gone past where John turned it around, there were some really difficult spots where one side of the road was quite a bit higher than the other on slopes into washes.
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| Wash that the pickup scraped across |
Thursday morning, after a windy night was quite cool in the trailer (55f). We drove into Parker to get some stuff and post the blog.
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