Sunday Drive: Fail
I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later. The inherent shortness of a “Sunday Drive” means there usually isn’t enough daylight left to check out a different area when the one you’re exploring winds up a bust. With the heavy rains (and snow) lately I was hopeful that the year-round springs in the nearby hills would be flowing strong.
Right out of the gate I noticed something was different. I’ll confess, I have been busy and haven’t been down to the local shooting area in weeks. I knew there had been construction, you don’t miss that sort of thing living rural, but I had no idea so much land had been torn up. As I approached what was the end of the road, the road didn’t end…
Where a wall of desert brush should lay ahead of me, a massive dirt parking lot filled with machinery that had been parked for the weekend took its place – the shooting range, ATV jumps, and miles of trails were simply gone. The few dozen tiny dirt tracks, once the last remnants of old roads reconquered by the desert, had been transformed into virtual highways. The 7-mile trek south to Route 66 took mere minutes.
By sharp contrast, the first few miles of the road leading toward Alkali Spring was extremely rocky. Not “boulder crawling fun” rocky, not “loose, slippery gravel” rocky, but that massive seemingly endless piece of battered rock so harsh you feel every single bump right at the top of your neck no matter how slow you go or how much air you let out of the tires. Fortunately, the devilstone gave way to soft sand not far beyond the wilderness boundary.
Just about the time the road and I reached an agreement I pulled up to my first stop for the day: a large, aging corral which I later learned is still in use. The variety of colors, shapes, and shadows made this a perfect playground to start learning my new camera. The biggest change for me is the filter kit I’m now able to run, something I’ve wanted to play with for years. I clearly have a lot of learning to do before I start getting good results with them.
Back on the road, the green fields of devilweed quickly gave way to the black volcanic sands below Alkali Spring. A few miles of “boulder crawling fun” later I arrived at the spring.
From the patterns of mud I could tell all this area received was flash flooding. The pocket of water was so dirty I’m not sure how the cattle can stand it. A check of Antelope Spring higher up the canyon revealed it to be bone-dry.
Though I didn’t find flowing streams, I did find several other spots to revisit later in the year, and crossed one of the three roads to Warm Springs Wilderness off the list.
