12/30/01 Hiking Palm Canyon:
I went looking for Palm Canyon in the Nofa National Wildlife Refuge two weeks ago. I didn't go far enough down US-95 from Quartzsite. I found it at mile 86 the other day when I went to Yuma.
A 4-5 mile drive back into the Nofa NWR brought me to mountain bluffs rising several hundred feet. These cliffs and ragged peaks formed a large V as they went farther into the mountains. Close to 1000 Desert Big Horn Sheep are in there somewhere. The males range from 150-200 pounds while the females range from 100-140. How come I don't know any females that light?
At 9:30/10am everything was still in shadows. Saguaro cactus seemed like 15 foot tall sentinels standing guard at various levels throughout the canyon. 1/2 mile along the trail I saw a sign saying "Palms". There, 2/3 of the way up the cliffs I saw a cluster of palm trees nestled in a narrow slot. These are California Fan Palms and just about the only naturally grown palms in Arizona. I probably would have missed them if it hadn't been for the sign. I expected them down in a valley. The only thing I was looking for on the cliffs was some big horns.
I followed what appeared to be a trail beyond the sign and soon found myself scrambling over boulders. Every once in a while I'd find a bit of trail. I dunno if this was a legitimate trail or one used by the big horns. I followed along another 1/2 mile or so. Eventually I hit a slope of scree or talus and struggled my way up it to a dead end.
12/31/01 Hiking No Name Canyon:
After leaving Palm Canyon I backtracked to the fork to a Kofa Queen Canyon and drove the 5 miles to it. A nice deserted camping area looked inviting so I stayed there overnight. I was surrounded by tall rugged peaks and there wasn't a soul around to disturb the tranquility.
A night in the mid/upper 40's. A No Name Canyon was still in the shadows at 8:30am as I started out and would be for the next couple of hours. Little stubby, ankle high cactus (cholla?) looked like they might present a problem so I had my hiking boots on for a change to avoid getting stuck. Just brushing against one of those things will get you half a dozen needles dug in deep... and they hurt. Lot of ocotilla cactus around too. These are long, thin, clustered branch type stems that have lots of thorns on them.
Climbing out of a wash I strained my back? I didn't do anything awkward, something just popped. I had pulled a muscle back there a few days ago when reaching for something. Today just aggravated that pull. I kept going anyway.
Turning into the canyon caused the cactus to give out. The canyon is a couple hundred yards wide with steep, jagged cliffs rising up a couple hundred feet. Lots of alcoves and even a couple of small arches. Lots of deer droppings or at least that's what I assumed them to be. They might have been big horn sheep but I don't know what sheep sh*t looks like.
Towards the head of the canyon things became steeper and the rocks turned into boulders and I found myself scrambling. 15-20 minutes of that put too much of a strain on my back so I quit after only 1.5 hours. Coming back down a wash I stepped on a loose rock and went down on my hands and knees. The pain I felt in my hands and knees wasn't from skinning them on rocks. It was from clusters of cactus needles stuck in me. Pulling them out of one hand caused them to stick in the other.
Later I just brushed against one of those cholla little suckers. Two balls of needles just broke off and stuck in my shin right through the denim. I tried to pluck the smaller one out with my bare hand. I got it out but of course now it was stuck in my fingers. Wrapping my Polar Tec vest around it I tried to pull it out. The needles went right through the vest and now I had fingers of both hands stuck together. These needles seem to have little hooks on the end because they're hard to pull out and the skin puckers as you pull on them. Talking to others about these cactus, we all swear that if you get within 5 feet of them those little balls just jump across the intervening distance to stick you.
I was going to go deeper into the refuge to find some more hiking but found myself low on gas. Not a good place to be stuck. All in all, not a good day.
01/05/02:
Spent a couple of days just sitting in a Dodge dealership waiting for repairs on the truck. I needed front rotors and went over to Blythe, California looking for a mechanic after New Year's Day. I just happened to find a Dodge dealer and they just happened to have the rotors and just happened to have an opening. That was the good news. The bad news was, after an hour or two they found they didn't have the required bearings and it took a while for them to arrive from a local auto parts store so I sat there most of the day. I also had front brake pads installed. The others lasted almost 130,000 miles.
I went back the second day to have a catalytic converter installed. Mine had been make clanking noises and they ordered it yesterday. The bad news is one of the pipes or something was the wrong size. They took it to a local machine shop and had it resized... but I got to spend another day at the dealership.
Now I'm back at Kofa Queen Canyon again. I drove up into it a mile or so but the road was more of a 4X4 road so I backed off. I think I'll hike up there tomorrow. I ran for 20 minutes this morning as part of my hour walk. The legs are a little tight and the hike should loosen them up a little. I want to continue with the running and get it back up to an hour several times a week.
01/06/02 Hiking Kofa Queen Canyon:
I got treated to a covey of 15-20 quail, with their little top knots last night. They came by feeding as I was making supper. This morning while having breakfast a tiny little humming bird dropped by. Nice bright blue throat. It stopped and hovered right in front of my face and then flew behind me and checked out the back of my head as I sat on the tailgate. Then it landed on a nearby branch and watched me for a while. The thing couldn't have been more than 2 inches long.
50's, cloudy with a 10mph wind blowing as I headed up Kofa Queen Canyon. I camped at the head of the canyon last night and it would be very difficult to find a prettier spot to camp. Lots of rough peaks and crags. I followed my own tire tracks up the canyon wash for a mile or so. Lots of saguros, ocotillas, and agaves throughout the canyon.
45 minutes later the road kinda petered out. I continued on up a narrow wash and soon came to a wall of cement? This was a 15 foot dam, on the other side was standard wash debris all the way to the top. A few feet in front of the dam is a natural depression about 15 feet deep. Cement had been added to plug up an outlet making for a nice deep well. Four 3 inch drain pipes would let water out to flow into the well. I presume the wall would hold some of the spring runoff back so it would seep down into the very loose sand and gravel to trickle into the well at a slow rate. A metal plate hammered into the rock says this is Cereus Tank.
Seems like this would be a good spot to observe from higher up although I didn't see any droppings, tracks or other evidence of big horn sheep. I scrambled upwards for another 45 minutes to the top of a ridge. I'm not a big fan of scrambling so took a break and headed back. While sitting there I did notice some droppings and tracks. Coulda been deer or big horn sheep, I dunno.