hiking – Page 6 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Am I on a trip or am I just living life

Agave Gulch Military Family Camp Davis Monthan AFB Tucson AZ High today 67 F currently 48 degrees F and clear

I had a moment this morning, while walking to the laundry, that felt like I wasn’t traveling at all, that I was just living “life”. I wasn’t on a big trip, I was just doing laundry. How do you explain moments like that? Of course I am on a “trip”, and yet it feels a bit like full timers feel when they say traveling around the country in a motorhome isn’t a vacation, it is just life.

We landed at Davis-Monthan AFB Agave Gulch Campground yesterday afternoon, early enough that the campground office was still open, and early enough to get settled in before the “big” game between the Packers and the 49rs. Having lived in the Bay Area for so long, Mo is a 49rs fan. We weren’t able to get local tv with the antenna, but managed to get a pretty good description of the game on the radio as we settled in for a couple of days here in Tucson. It was a good day all around, Mo’s team won.

It was also a good day in that there were plenty of sites to choose from here at the FamCamp, and we got a nice one on the outside loop with no one next to us. This is definitely a great place to stay in Tucson for just $20 bucks per night for full hookups, minus TV of course. Hence a game on the radio. Mo bought a satellite for the MoHo recently but it didn’t arrive before we left on this trip. Oh wait…we aren’t on a trip….we are just living. Well, we are living without much TV and I find that extremely relaxing. It is good to get out of the news cycle now and then. Of course, I do have the internet and the computer for the really important stuff. Like banking. What in the world did we do when travelers didn’t have access to online banking?

I had planned to do laundry here because I remembered the nice clean laundry facility with plenty of machines and only 1.00 to wash and 1.00 to dry. It is a good place to get the rugs and blankets all spiffed up and fresh again and I took advantage of that yesterday afternoon.

Today we woke to a free day with wide open possibilities. Local friends in the Tucson area all seemed to be gallivanting off somewhere else, so there were no visits planned. Instead we decided to explore a different part of Tucson than we saw when we passed through here in 2007 and again in 2011.

Most of the time we have traveled from the air force base toward the south, with one visit to the downtown area. This time we traveled north to visit the popular Catalina State Park, at the base of the beautiful Catalina Mountains just north and a bit east of town. As we drove up Swan Road toward Oracle Road the shift in lifestyles and neighborhoods was dramatic. The flatter areas were lower middle class homes, tight little neighborhoods with lots of cars parked around and small shops and groceries. With just a little bit of elevation, the houses got bigger, and as we climbed the hills toward the mountains, the houses and shops increased in value with every foot uphill.

Before long we were in nosebleed territory with Whole Foods anchoring some pretty fancy malls and some houses that looked as big as hotels. Of course there were also hotels and spas behind huge gates, all with gorgeous views of the city below and the Catalina Mountains behind. It was beautiful, and especially in January I could imagine living here. In some other very wealthy life, I am sure.

Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite authors, and she lived in Tucson when I first started reading her books. She and her husband and family picked up lock stock and barrel and relocated to her ancestral home in the Appalachian Mountains. She said she wanted to live a more sustainable life, where there was water and soil and you could grow your own food. Tucson is lovely in many ways, but would be pure hell without air conditioning.

Still, as we meandered into Catalina State Park, the Arizona sun worked its magic on us entirely. The day was clear and nicely warm with a cooling breeze. The skies were so blue they almost hurt. Many bloggers have extolled the virtues of Catalina State Park, and it almost seemed like too much hoopla to me, so I was never that anxious to get there. I was so wrong.

What a gorgeous place to be in January. We checked out the campground loops and decided that yes, we could definitely spend a week or more here hiking these beautiful mountains. Funny, because the last time we were in Tucson we thought we never needed to come back unless we were passing through as we did this time. After our day in Catalina SP, I can see us coming back again for some January sunshine and blue skies.

The main reason we decided to visit this park was to enjoy the dog friendly trails. So often park trails are closed to dogs and it was great to find some areas that let us bring Abby along. She especially loved the cool water in the creek that meandered though the canyon floor. We did too, and took our time hiking three miles or so and stopping for photos and just sitting by the bubbling stream. What a perfect day!

We had planned a couple of other activities for the day, but by the time we left the park the afternoon traffic was getting thicker and we decided to skip the tour of the downtown art colony and instead go back home to our waiting supper. I recently found a nice little crockpot and decided it was time to make a stew, so it had been cooking all day while we were gone. Nice to come home to dinner all ready to go after a long day.

Jeremy wasn’t too happy for us to be gone that long, and did some old cat things that made me not so happy as well. sigh. I am glad he is with us….most of the time. Sometimes not so much. I am doing more laundry tonight, catching up on photos and blogs while I wait for the last batch to finish.

Tomorrow we will continue east toward Las Cruces. An easy day of Interstate 10 driving and an early arrival at a Passport America park within walking distance to Old Mesilla and some Mexican food!

1-3-2014 It has something to do with the light

Desert Hot Springs 62 degrees F this evening and high thin clouds with a sliver of a moon

I guess because I grew up in Southern California there is something about the color of the light that touches me down deep. I certainly wouldn’t want to live here all the time, but when I visit, memories surface and I feel as though I am in very familiar territory. I slip back into feelings and impressions I had when I was a kid, nameless, the memories are nothing solid, but the sensations are interesting to experience. Wordless, really, and yet I keep trying to put it into words somehow.

It felt that way early this morning, as Mo and I swam in the hot springs pool at 5am, watching the stars and the many airplanes in the dark sky going in all directions. We had the place to ourselves until 6:30, a surprise, because usually there are early risers slipping into the hot water long before daylight. The water in the adult pool in the lower part of the park where we like to stay was a comfortable 95 degrees or so, and the hot spa was 104F. Hot enough to soak out any left over aches and pains left from sitting around too much in the rig.

As much as we enjoy coming to Catalina Spa and RV Resort, it is getting to be a bit more difficult. The park is a membership only kind of place, and while they honor our Passport America card, they now limit our stay to only 2 nights. Otherwise the rate is 65 bucks a day, more than either of us wants to spend, no matter how nice the pools are. The new rules will let us stay here for 4 days for a mere $45, if we spend an hour listening to a spiel for purchasing a Coast to Coast membership, and this would be our home park.

We are a bit too rambling for that sort of thing, though, and our road trips include state parks, national parks, boondocking, and lots of other kinds of camping than a Coast to Coast membership would provide. Not a good use of money. So who knows if we will come back again. Today we went over to Sam’s Family Spa, a place that Nina seems to love, but it seemed a lot bigger and busier and the pools aren’t open all night as they are here. That is my favorite thing. I love slipping into a silent hot pool in the middle of the night and swimming under the stars.

Later this morning, when we emerged from the Tracker at the Whitewater Preserve ranger station, that light thing hit me again really hard. Adding to the light was the fragrance of sycamore trees and cottonwoods along the riverbed that almost made me feel that I was 9 years old again. My daddy used to take me on hikes into the San Gabriel Mountains that looked and felt very much like these mountains around us at the base of the Mt San Gorgonio Wilderness.

Whitewater Canyon Loop Trail Nina and Rick have both talked about hiking Whitewater Preserve with their dogs. Finding dog friendly hikes in Southern California is only second in difficulty to finding dog friendly beaches in Florida. I was happy to have a new idea for something for us to do that would be fun on our only full day here in Desert Hot Springs.

The hike was a perfect Southern California hike on a perfect SoCal day: warm, a light breeze, and brilliant, brilliant sunshine illuminating everything around us. I stopped in at the ranger station first to get a handle on the trails and a young man at the desk gave me a thorough and very practiced talk on where to go and what to follow.

What I didn’t realize was that we would be hiking along a very small portion of the Pacific Crest Trail, the PCT, subject of a great book I just read called “Wild”. The PCT meanders along the Cascade crest not far from our home in Rocky Point, and Mo and I have hiked bits and pieces of it when we climbed McLoughlin and hiked in the Sky Lakes Wilderness. The cute little guy behind the desk said, “Gee, you could walk home from here!”. Hmmm…maybe not.

The 3.5 mile loop that we hiked today was definitely enough. I am a bit soft from an autumn full of quilting and not enough snow shoveling. The switchbacks weren’t too difficult on the way up and neither of us were huffing and puffing too terribly, but the knees definitely need a bit of work to handle those downhills. Thank goodness for hiking poles I guess.

We spent about two hours actually hiking and some more time just sitting by the bubbling water letting Abby play before we ambled back to the parking lot. There are lots of hikes in the area, a couple of easier ones, and several more strenuous 8 mile one way hikes that followed the PCT for a great distance.

With a light breakfast and no lunch in our bellies, I was glad that we needed to slip into Palm Springs to buy a missing printer cable on the way home. I just knew there had to be ice cream somewhere in downtown Palm Springs, and with a little bit of help from google we found Lappert’s Ice Cream. My oh My! I had some kind of Kona coffee thing with fancy chocolate in it. The place had lots of Hawaiian themed goodies, and something called Donkey Balls. Hmmm….I did ask about that, and they are macadamia nuts coated in chocolate. Just like the ones from Maui, although I didn’t know they were called donkey balls.

Who takes a Segway into the mountains?

We were happy to get home in late afternoon. Dealing with Palm Springs traffic and people isn’t exactly fun, although seeing Palm Springs in the daytime was kind of nice. Most of the time when we are here we only go there in the evening for the street fair. Once back home we settled in to do money stuff, and Mo was very happy to have our little working Canon printer along so she could print out needed documents.

I said, heck with that, I am going for another swim! With only two days to enjoy the pools I don’t want to miss a minute. I walked a bit more distance to the upper pool, supposedly the nicer one. It was a bit cooler and a bit bigger, but there were a lot more folks around, since it was getting close to time for the “all you can eat” spaghetti supper. With just an ice cream lunch, it started smelling pretty good and I walked back home to start of the Weber and made some yummy pork chops and rice with a salad. Much better than spaghetti from a community pot I think.

I swam last night when we arrived, at 5am this morning, and again this evening. I will be in the pool again tomorrow before dawn as well, you can bet on it. We are heading to Gila Bend and Tucson tomorrow, still not sure whether we will stop in Gila Bend for the night or just press on to Tucson. All depends on how we feel. Gila Bend FamCamp isn’t that great and Tucson is fabulous, but who knows.

Google Earth image of our hike on the Whitewater Canyon Loop

Got an email tonight from Texas warning of possible weather trouble in the vicinity of Fort Davis, so spent a bit of time re-checking routes and weather and fuel stops. Nope. Don’t want that low fuel thing to get us when nights could be in the teens as we get into Texas in a few days. When I planned this trip, I knew that the weather could do anything and everything between Oregon and Florida, so hopefully we are ready for whatever comes our way.

Shortcuts are fun

September 7 Fossil Oregon Sunny day in the mid 80’s F

Don’t you just love shortcuts? Especially the ones you try to navigate sight unseen because the maps look good. Never mind any kind of GPS navigator, I am sure that wouldn’t work out here in the fossil no man’s land. Phones don’t work, why would garmin girl have a clue?!

I perused the paper maps a lot, including our Oregon Gazetteer before trying to take a short cut down to the Painted Hills Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds in the Tracker. After our little conversation with a local rancher the other day, I knew that roads on the map may not really be there, but he did say that the road south went through to the unit so we decided to give Cottonwood Creek a try.

Nope. After driving a considerable distance on the gravel road, we found to our dismay that the road south was gated and signed as PRIVATE. It didn’t look that great either, so we rerouted back to Highway 19 and started south again on another “short-cut” via the narrow, unlined, but thankfully paved Rowe Creek Road.

The short cut really was a good way to get down south, with only 38 miles from the turn to the park, but the curvy dirt road that went west from the little burg of Twickenham, on the John Day River, to connect with the graveled Bridge Creek Road was a hair raiser. Even in the Tracker! Big ranch trucks barreling around the corners seemed to think it was a one way road and a couple of times I thought we were going to get bumped right off into the canyon.

Once we arrived at the park, though, it was all worth it, and the beautiful soft green grass and shady picnic tables were a nice place to rest in the warm sunshine before we tackled the roads and trails in the Painted Hills Unit.

Again, there was great signage explaining the different formations and the kinds of fossils found in each one. Maybe by the time we are through visiting here I will actually remember which is which.

There are four trails in the area that are listed, and one more short trail that is yet to get published on the park maps. Each one is only 1/4 mile except for the Carrol Rim Trail which is a short, steep 1.5 mile round trip. We took our time visiting each little trail, trying to make it all last until the late afternoon light would give us photos that wouldn’t be completely washed out in the bright daylight.

The Leaf Hill trail is less than spectacular, but the story of Leaf Hill is incredible. The first major fossil find in the area was here, with a paleontologist gleaning more than 20,000 different fossils from just 93 cubic yards of excavated shale.

West of the Leaf Hill trail is another short trail around Red Hill. It was getting hotter and brighter, and I wished that we had waited until later in the day to come south to this area.

About a mile back on the gravel road, was a turn off to another tiny trail around the Painted Cove. There a boardwalk has been constructed to allow access to the brilliant clay hills without damaging them. I really appreciated the great signage explaining the geology of the area.

Another mile back and we returned again to the Overlook Trail, which still appeared much too bright and flat to make the 1/2 mile walk worth it. Instead, across the way was the trailhead for the Carrol Rim Trail.

Hot and bright or not, it was time to climb. We figured we could hang around on the rim and take our time until the sun slanted a bit more so that I could get some photos of the amazing colors of the painted hills.

Don’t laugh at my hiking gear. I forgot to put my hiking Keen sandals in the Tracker this morning, so while I had my good walking sticks, my hiking for the day was accomplished in these rather amazing Oofos. No slipping and sliding at all. They worked great. Mo and I always laugh at the teenagers we see hiking in flip flops. So now I appear to be just as smart as those teenagers!

The hike was hot, but once around the rim the winds picked up and the breezes cooled us off. We had the trail and summit completely to ourselves. It was gorgeous. We sat around on the lovely juniper benches, a great amenity at most of the trails in the park, and watched the light change. Just a little, but it was changing.

By the time we got back down to the first overlook bench on the trail, it was nearly 6pm, and still the light was high and bright. I guess I just wasn’t committed enough to wait until sunset. That would have meant we got home after dark, and nope. Not worth it this time.

What I did discover, however, is that the view from the Carrol Rim Trail is much more interesting at this time of year than the view from the more popular Overlook Trail. On the Rim, we were at the right angle to at least get a bit of light and shadow on the beautifully eroded soft clay hills, but from the Overlook trail you couldn’t even see any ridges at all as the light was directly on the hills and visually flattened out the ridges completely.

I loved our travels through John Day Fossil Beds, I loved learning the formations, and trying to identify them as we crossed the landscape, I loved the light, the color, all of it. I loved the little town of Fossil, and the folks in the Café that actually let me enjoy a bit of an internet connection for the cost of a cup of coffee. In times past, as I have traveled along Highway 26 I always wanted to understand this area more deeply, and now I do.

Tomorrow: To Clyde Holiday State Park, and who was John Day anyway?

Driving in Circles

September 6 Fossil, Oregon Overcast and in the 70’s

The John Day Fossil Beds National Monument is an amazing treasure in Oregon. It is made up of 3 different units that are located along sections of Highway 26, and Highway 19 west of the town of John Day. We traveled through John Day back in 2008 via Highway 26. Not far from town is the lovely Clyde Holiday State Park, touted as a jumping off point for visiting the Fossil Beds, as is the town of John Day itself.

Instead, I picked Fossil as our home base for exploring the area, with thoughts of possibly staying at the Spray wayside, or even in John Day for the latter part of the stay. No matter how we planned various unit explorations, we still had to do several backtracks, and some repeat drives. Maybe the map will help explain it. As closely as I can estimate, we drove more than 375 miles to see all three sections of the park from our site in Fossil. I don’t think we could have managed it with any fewer miles from any other location. The green lined blocks on the map are the different units of the John Day Fossil Beds. Most folks traveling along Highway 26 will take a short trip up to the visitor center and the Sheeprock Unit, but it takes a bit of effort to get to the other sections.

The trip today to the Sheeprock Unit took us through Spray, where we checked out the possible camping choice and came up with a resounding NO! The river is very low, the campground is open and has no hookups, and for $12 doesn’t offer much in the way of amenities. I think it would be a good spot to get on the river if there happened to be water there, but at the moment not so much.

Continuing along toward Kimberley and then south toward the first section of the Sheeprock Unit, the Foree Area, was lovely, in spite of the overcast skies. At least it wasn’t raining.

There are only two hikes in Foree, both of them only 1/4 mile long, but they are well signed, and one of them is even wheelchair accessible. we looked into our first example of the Turtle Cove formation, somewhat subdued by the gray light, and still found it amazing. One of the more delightful aspects of hiking in the John Day Fossil Beds is that we can take Abby on all the trails. It is a dog friendly place, hard to find in any kind of national park or monument.

A few miles south along the river we came to the Blue Basin Area of the Sheeprock Unit, where the rain clouds didn’t have any downpours planned for us and decided that the 3 1/2 mile Overlook trail would be much more fun than just walking into the short Island in Time trail.

The first part of the trail is not too steep, and there was fresh elk scat still steaming. Never did see the elk, but we did see lots of evidence of many different kinds of critters in the area. Looking back along the trail, I was surprised to see just how much elevation we had gained. The trail was steep and narrow, but not incredibly difficult. The newly constructed boardwalk across some of the more unstable portions of the trail was great.

Once at the summit overlook the skies lightened just enough to make things interesting. The view below was magnificent, and the trail continued along the contours for another mile or so before making a very steep descent via switchbacks to the valley below.

Knees started arguing not too long before the bottom, and I’m glad I had my walking sticks along at least. It was a great hike, and the only one around with any kind of distance or effort involved.

Continuing south along the John Day River, we arrived at the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center which also serves as the information center for the park. I loved it! There is a large lab with a window that gives you the chance to see the grad students at work painstakingly cleaning fossils. There is extensive information on the process of fossil collection and documentation, and of course there are incredible exhibits.

The fossils at the John Day Fossil Beds encompass the entire range of existence of mammals, 40 to 50 million years, with more than 2,000 species found in the park. I was enthralled with the magnificent murals depicting theories of life during the different ages. Looking at the tiny pieces of bone, I couldn’t help but wonder at the science of paleontology. How in the world do they figure that stuff out?!?! Soil science is a piece of cake compared to that kind of detective work.

Some murals like this can seem pretty hokey, but not here. The murals were rich and textured and had “feeling”. Not sure how to explain it exactly, but I loved them.

There isn’t a lot of fuel around the area, and after visiting the Center, we drove a few more miles through Picture Gorge toward the little town of Dayville and its one lonely gas pump for Tracker fuel at $4.19 per gallon. I think there was another pump in Spray, but it looked pretty old and who knows how much gas was there. Later we discovered that there was indeed another pump in Fossil, but when we left the Center, we weren’t too sure about that one and decided to not take a chance.

It never rained on us all day long, and the sun even came out for our drive back home along the river. As the temperatures started to rise, I found myself really grateful that we didn’t have to hike in the hot sun. I guess it is a trade-off, because with the clearing skies, I hoped for a bit more light to capture the amazing colors in the Painted Hills unit tomorrow.

On the drive home near Cathedral Rock, I found this blue heron sitting high above the river. Seemed so funny to see a heron in such a desert situation.

Pinnacles

One hundred ninety five. Miles. That is the distance that the San Andreas Fault has slipped northwestward since the Pinnacles Volcanoes were formed between 20 and 30 million years ago. What I found so incredibly fascinating about this place is that it was once just a simple stratovolcano, very similar to Mt St Helens before she blew.

It erupted and exploded and flowed and rumbled for a few million years before going silent. Then the Farallon plate that was diving below the American plate at last completely melted and finally stopped heating things up, and the Pacific Plate ran right up against the American Plate and instead of diving, it started sliding. The huge stratovolcano was literally split in two, while two thirds rode north on the Pacific Plate and the other third stayed behind on the American Plate.

Over time and many climate changes, the entire volcano was buried under eons of sediments then uplifted and eroded again to expose the multicolored hues of various versions of rhyolitic volcanic rock. The two thirds that forms the present day Pinnacles was uplifted more recently and is far more dramatic that the one third that has soft, old rounded landscapes, left behind 195 miles away somewhere in the vicinity of Lancaster.

We came to Pinnacles mainly to hike some of its many trails and stand on the top of what remains of the old volcanoes. We also came to possibly see the condors who are released here in a special breeding program attempting to bring them back from extinction. Of course, we also came for warm sunshine in March and spring wildflowers. We got most of what we came for, but this evening, after a bit of research, I am pretty sure our condor sightings were really just big, beautiful turkey vultures soaring over the High Peaks.

Waking to an absolutely gorgeous sunny morning at Coyote Lake, we drove less than five miles to Creature Comfort, a dog resort Mo found for Abby in nearby Gilroy. Mo was nervous about leaving her, worried that she might figure a way out, but once we arrived, the many tall chain link fences underlain with plywood barriers to stop the diggers eased her mind a bit. There were about 20 dogs running around all happy and of course they all had to come to the fence to greet the newcomer. Abby thought the world was ending of course, and we were reluctant to leave, but the woman caretaker said, “It is like kids in a day care, you just need to get out of here, and she will be fine”.

The trip south to Pinnacles was just a bit over 50 miles, but once past the small town of Hollister, it seemed we were wandering off into an unknown world. The green hills gave way to brown, even less rain here I guess, and there were a few huge estates and rolling acres of grapevines, surrounded by rangeland.

The Verizon signal gave out and the ATT bars disappeared and we were completely disconnected for the next two and a half days. We had decided not to make reservations, since we were coming mid week, and that worked out just fine, this time. In the future, we will probably make reservations since we learned later that this park can be completely full on weekends. You just never know. When we arrived, however, on a Wednesday afternoon, we had our choice of several of the electric only hookup sites in the main part of the RV park.

We settled in to a site with no reserved sign, and were told to come back after four to pay since there was no one capable of taking money at the visitor center. Interesting. There was a little store there as well, and I bought Fritos on the honor system, putting exact change in a brown envelope as instructed by the ranger at the desk..

The park was quiet, the sun was warm, there was lots of space between sites with many of them empty. Mo and I looked at each other and said, “Why not?”. We let Jeremy out to play, off leash. Sure enough, Jeremy was as great as I thought he would be, but it did help that there were no bushes or creeks for him to explore, just open space, and he hung around the motorhome sniffing and playing until he finally decided to go back inside on his own. It was nice to let him have that bit of freedom.

Mo and I studied the park maps, the trails, the geology folders, the small booklet that I bought (with exact change of course), and decided that our afternoon hike should be the three miles or so up to the reservoir beyond the Moses Caves. I had no desire to go through the caves, so we went around them and up some rather incredible stone stairs to the small dam built by the CCC and the reservoir. It seems we also neglected to plan for the fact that this was spring break week in this part of California.

There were lots of groups of kids in buses, and in the group tent sites, and on the trails. At the reservoir, we sat quietly with a small group of kids who were intently writing their reflections on “reflection” as they looked at the sky reflected in the water of the reservoir.Rather than retrace our steps, we took The Rim Trail which led up and back and around and down again to the parking area. Perfect 3 mile hike for a perfect afternoon. We knew we were saving the big one for the next day when we would have a full day to hike.

Returning to the campground, I went back to the visitor center to pay my fee, only to discover that our site was technically reserved and we would have to move. Seems as though whomever is responsible for putting out the reserved signs was letting down on the job. We took down the awning, tucked everything into the rig and moved across the way to a site we liked better anyway. It was lovely, with a huge live oak shading the picnic table and a perfect view of the mountain ridges to the south. We spent the evening entertained by turkey gobbles, quail calls and high clouds racing across the bright skies.

The next morning we packed up some tuna sandwiches and plenty of water to take on our planned six mile loop hike. There are several options in the park, but with only this day for hiking we thought it would be good to get to the High Peaks Trail. There are several ways to reach that trail, and we chose the Condor Trail, with an elevation of 1200 feet or so in 1.7 miles to the intersection. The morning was sunny but cool, perfect for hiking and the uphill climb seemed easy. The views were expansive and gorgeous, looking back over the park down to Bear Gulch where we started.

At the intersection with the High Peaks Trail, we walked south a bit to see the views, and then continued back north for the 2.7 miles down to the Bench Trail. During this time of week, there are no shuttles, so we stopped for lunch in the warm sunshine and rested our weary downhill legs. All four knees held up, but I was really glad for my hiking poles! It is a LOT of downhill with very few breaks. It was then another couple miles back to the parking area hiking along Bear Gulch, with more ups and downs than expected. Amazing how much more we felt those little elevation changes after several miles of hiking!

It was only mid afternoon when we returned, and we considered going back later to try a bit of the Old Pinnacles Trail. However, neither of us were really up for another six mile hike and on the map it appeared that it was almost 3 miles one way to see the Balconies Caves. Instead we decided to explore the campground a bit and discovered a huge complex of primitive campsites that could probably hold a small rig, but with no hookups, and every single one of them was reserved for the weekend, and many of those included Thursday night! We couldn’t imagine all those tent campers showing up, but we left before finding out on Friday morning.

When we reached Bear Gulch Visitor Center after our hiking loop, there was a grad student from South Carolina taking a survey of your park experience. It seems that the park is considering limiting access to large groups, perhaps limiting the number of people who can enter the trails at one time, and even requiring shuttle only entrance into the park area. We saw some illustrative posters of differing numbers of folks at different sites along the trail. I was incredibly surprised. We had the entire morning and hiked the entire trail without seeing any other hikers until the very end where we met a young couple from Costa Rica, just up from the Bench Trail. But at the parking lot there were suddenly screaming hordes of children, climbing over rocks, yelling, running up and down and generally doing what kids do on Spring Break. Maybe the High Peaks trail is too long for them and the Moses Cave Trail and the Reservoir are the goal of a spring break day. The other goal seems to be rock climbing, with several areas filled with young ones attempting their first ascents. We laughed as we overheard several children saying “not me” when asked who wanted to go first and then hearing the high voice of a young girl piping up with “I’ll go first!”

We were blessed with two days of perfectly gorgeous, coolish, sunny weather, an uncrowded campground, empty trails, wonderful hiking, lots of wildlife, and the possibility of seeing the endangered condor. We studied the maps again, read Merikay’s account of hiking the southern loop of the High Peaks trail and decided, Yes, we will come back to this park again in the springtime. We will avoid Spring Break Week, we will make a reservation in the campground, hopefully for number 91 again, and we will hike the rest of the trails that we didn’t have time to hike this time.

Yes, it is a bit out of the way, but it is a lovely place to spend a few days if you time it right. Kinda nice being off the grid entirely.