"Red Dirt Road" - (music sign, music sign again)

Thursday 7 May 2015

After having dragged my sorry butt out of bed at 5 am to relocate, I was pretty proud that we still made on our way at ……  9:00 am!

A quick stop at the ranger station to confirm weather forecast and road conditions, we back-tracked a few miles to House Rock Valley Road for a 10-mile bumpy ride to Wire Pass Trail (slot canyon).  Now to be sure, slot canyons are beautiful, but for every year I age, mortality becomes a more conscious element.  Today’s forecast is for no rain, so being flushed down the toilet from Utah to Arizona isn’t a factor.  The hike was beautiful as you can see.

Note - The sign at the beginning of the trail gives all the normal "Do not enter if there is any rain within a hundred miles... If you encounter flooding seek high ground....." (Duh). But this one also adds that "Flash floods usually recede within 8-12 hours but pockets of quick sand may exist for several days thereafter."  A final comforting thought is, "If caught in quick sand, do not panic, you should not sink any further than your waste waist."

Enroute to Wire Pass

Not a cloud in the sky.

Looks like a giant cow-pie fossil

Flash flood emergency exit.

Lunch break.
(A few clouds, be we're on our way back.)

We were stopped by a 6 foot drop from one level of the slot to the next.  Getting down would have been pretty easy, (going down always is), but getting up would require one of us to stand on top of the other to get a hand hold.  We couldn’t agree on who would be the stair-step so we turned back up the trail.

A short stop to "borrow" some red dirt for the cactus she snagged
on our New Mexico trip a few years back.

A couple of miles further down the road was a possible petroglyph site.  I’d only seen it mentioned in one article, and the directions were, “Park at the wide spot in the road and take the faint trail to the east until it disappears at the top of the first ridge.  Then look NNE across the broad sage brush valley for the prominent boulder near the base of the next ridge.”  That didn’t seem like much to go on, but the rock art was described as exceptionally interesting.

Soooo…. Off we went up the REALLY faint trail to look for a large boulder amidst what must be God’s breeding ground for large boulders.  From the top of the first ridge, we were able to pick out a good candidate boulder about ¾ mile across the valley.

The idea of wading through hip high sage brush for that distance also raised the previously mentioned mortality issue.  If I was a rattlesnake I know where I’d live.  The results as shown below.

Do you suppose this is th boundary to the "By Permit Only" area?
"Nah... Its the next ridge line"

OK... That's bearing 080 degrees.  So to get back to this point, we just
turn around and go back on bearing 260 degrees.

So how's come I always have to go first??

Yep...  It was the right rock!

This guy REALLY needs to change his mushroom supplier.

Snake, "OK you take the right path and I'll take the left."

As we were sitting at the base of the petroglyph rock contemplating what drug crazed mind produced this art work, the clouds started to thicken up.  The 12 mile road back was pretty hilly and made of a clay base, which would make for a thrilling ride back (that mortality thing again) if it rained.

Long story short, (well not really I guess), we made if back fine from a really good couple of hikes.  Particularly the petroglyphs which can tickle the imagination about the who and the why of it.

Good night from tonight's White House road campsite, (legal this time).

Brad And Val