Week ending Mar 8, 2018 Saddle Mountain BLM

Friday we moved all the way (about 8 miles) to the north side of Saddle Mountain to boondock, and get a decent test of two solar panels working.   They worked quite well, even running the furnace, which draws 11 amps,  for half an hour one morning.

Toward the mountain from our trailer

Our hikes for three days on Saddle Mountain.   Saturday in yellow, Sunday in red and Monday in dark green.

Our trails on Saddle Mountain

Saturday, we did a hike around a knoll to the southwest.  On the south side of the knoll, we came to an ATV trail heading west.  We followed this west for a bit to an intersection with another trail.  That trail came from the north and then headed south east between two rows of peaks toward the center of the mountain.  We decided to leave the route into the mountain for another. We followed the trail north toward Courthouse road, because we wanted to check out an image on the side of a hill to the west. 

not sure what this said

After getting  a picture, we carried on until we came across 4 people who had parked an SUV further down, and were searching the ground.  We chatted with a fellow and his wife. They were from Kansas, visiting friends in the area, and were looking for 'desert rose' rocks, which are bits of quartz with a pink tint.

a bit of desert rose

While chatting with them, we noticed the 'angel' on the mountain.

angel-shaped view

From there we went down the road a bit until we got to a point where it split.  We headed up the other arm until we got close to our trailer and then across a shallow wash to our trailer.

blue and green lichen

Sunday, we decided to walk up the trail into the mountain we had seen the day before.  We walked south toward the cross road we had been on yesterday, then to the intersection we found yesterday.  This time we took the trail southeast into the mountain.  This was up a 'box canyon' with nice peaks on both sides, following up a wash.   Once we got about halfway up this wash, we noticed a truck towards the end of the canyon.  Shortly after that, we heard target shooting ahead, so decided that it was time to return.  On our way out, we met 3 fellows coming up the canyon.  We mentioned the target shooters.  They thanked us for the warning.  They were heading for one of the peaks along the south ridge, so could skirt around the shooters.   When we asked them if they knew where the petroglyph rock on the mountain was located, they didn't know, but told us there were some in the Eagletail Wilderness to the west.

Monday, we decided to take a trail on the mountain that we had seen when we came out from the trailer park in Tonopah.  We tried to drive south up the road we are parked next to, then east across the foot of the mountain.  However. we came to a wash crossing that we didn't want to cross in the truck.  We (John) decided that we should go back to the paved road, then east to the Palo Verde Mine Road (which we had walked a week ago).  We drove up the Palo Verde road until it got a bit too rough and narrow, and find a spot we could back off the road.  From there we crossed country heading west until we got to the road that heads up the side of the mountain.  We walked up this to a saddle, where we got some good views.   While we were there  fellow from Oregon road up on an ATV and took a few pictures of the views. We chatted for a while.  After he headed back down the road, we had lunch.  While we were there we saw what looked like it might be a cabin near the bottom of the slope across from us.

'Cabin' from across the valley

We decided that we could walk down to it, then go down the valley and around the east end of the hill back to the truck.  We worked our way down to the object of interest.  Unfortunately it turned out to be a simple chunk of rock only about 3 feet high, that had the sun on it so that it looked like it might be a small cabin.

'Cabin' rock up close

From there, we walked along the slope above the wash until we got near the end of the ridge north of us, and worked our way around it to our truck.  

Tuesday, after doing some research on the location of the petroglyphs in Eagletail Wilderness, and marking the turn-off to the trailhead, the trailhead, and the petroglyph location on our E-trex, as well as writing down directions for following the trail, we headed west along Courthouse Rd, straight toward Courthouse Mountain.  At the edge of the wilderness, we headed 4 miles northwest along the El Paso Natural Gas Pipeline road, which had a lot of washboard and wash crossings that slowed us down.  We found the signage for the Wilderness, and headed the 1.5 miles south to the Ben Avery North Trailhead.  We stopped at a rocky area going over the edge of a little hill to make sure it was passable.  Fortunately it was okay, so we carried on to the trailhead.  John had actually seen the shadow of the sign-board at the trailhead on Wikimapia, so we were pretty confident of this location.   He had discovered Wikimapia when searching for information on the location of the petroglyphs.   The trail heading south along the west side of Courthouse Rock was pretty easy to follow.  For the first mile, it paralleled a wash.  At that point we went into the wash for a while until we came to cairns on the left side.  This section of the trail was very well-trodden, with cairns at critical points, making it easy to follow.  After wandering up and down the hilly section, we eventually hit a jeep road.  This took us south until we came to the black cliffs on which the natives had etched the petroglyphs.  There is quite a number of images.  

After having our lunch we headed back.   The trip was about 3.5 mi each direction, and took us from 10:45 until about 2:30.    We were quite happy when we got back.  

Ocotillo growing in a bed of quartz rocks

Courthouse Rock from south

On the way back on Courthouse Road, we saw a black fox scoot across the road ahead of us.  Fortunately it stopped just across the road.  When we backed up to get a picture, it had moved further into the brush, but was still visible.  It was hard to focus on with the brush between us.

 

Wednesday we took a day off to rest Joan's knee.  It had gotten a lot of stress this week.


Thursday we packed up as soon as it got light, and drove to the Subway at the Shell station in Tonopah for breakfast.  Then we headed up Vulture Mine Road to Wickenburg where we picked up groceries for the week.   From there we headed over the hills north through the Joshua Trees on highway 93 to Dazzo's Desert Oasis and Chicago Eatery, "the finest RV park in Wikieup, the world's best Chicago hot dogs and Italian beefs, the best in the west".