03/13/03 Hiking Ring Trail (4 miles round trip):
Got here a couple of days ago and have just been hanging out. Temperatures have been pushing 80 degrees.
The Ring Trail goes through volcanic canyon walls filled with holes from left over gasses and enlarged by erosion. It's called the Ring Trail because to descend down to the canyon floor you have to go down a sheer chimney type formation. Thick, heavy rings have been pounded into the wall to provide foot and hand holds.
Once out of the canyon the Ring Trail connects to the 8 mile trail to Mid-Hills Trail. I followed it a couple of miles to a gate. I had hiked this trail last year and remembered it turned into a sandy road that is difficult to walk on so I turned back at that point.
Lots of yuccas in full bloom and billions upon billions of little tiny purple flowers everywhere. Lots of barrel cactus and chain cholla everywhere too.
Gas was $2.79 when I filled up before entering the preserve so I really don't want to be doing a lot of driving. I did drive over to the Kelso Sand Dunes and will wander up into them tomorrow. They seem to be a couple of hundred feet high and are supposed to turn a rose color at sunrise and sunset. I'm camped right beside them and we'll see tonight.
03/14/03 Hiking Kelso Sand Dunes (3 miles round trip):
50's last night but so was the wind, or pretty close to it. They died down somewhere around 2am.
There's no real trail through the sand dunes after a short distance. The goal is usually the tallest peak at about 600 feet. It's surrounded by 45 square miles of sand and dunes. Pretty big sand box to play in.
The clock is on Pacific time but I guess I'm still on Mountain time. The sun is up at 6am and so am I. I hit the trailhead at 7:30am. All I did was follow progressively higher sand dunes towards the big peak. When I got near it I should have swung to the right and climbed a smaller dune onto a ridge and then followed the ridge to the larger peak.
Instead, I attacked the largest peak directly... wrong! I would take one step forward of about 18 inches and slide back 6-9 inches with every step. That was at the base of the peak. Then it got steeper. I was climbing sideways with my feet and still slipping back. It got to the point where I'd take 5-10 steps and then have to rest for 1-2 minutes. While resting my feet would start sliding back down and I'd have to sit to stop the slide.
Took me about 20-25 minutes to go 100-150 feet. Finally I couldn't maintain an upright position and tried crawling. That didn't last long and I finally gave up a few feet from the top when I saw another peak just behind mine. I wasn't going to get into one of those deals where you climb the next peak and then there's another. Anyway, I was looking for an excuse to turn back.