Well, slowly but surely we're starting to catch up. There is so much to see and do around Yuma and we really enjoy our treks into the desert. Hope you do, too. Same drill as before - start at the bottom and work your way to the top where the most recent photos are located.
And, of course, the saguaro cactus. This one reminded me of something - hmmmm???
One of my favourites - the teddy bear cholla. Not that cuddly, unfortunately!
The rain the previous week had left the desert in bloom. I've included photos of some of the beautiful cacti we saw along the way. Above is an ocotillo in full bloom.
As we drove away we noticed a hole through the hill beneath an arch - the big eye???
When we got to the bottom, we discovered that all our so-called friends were packing up and ready to leave. Good thing we got there when we did!!
It's a long way from here to there! Unfortunately we took the alternate route and I ended up crabwalking (creeping down using my hands and butt) in a few places.
Back to open spaces and fresh air!! Audrey and I are checking out the route we plan to take to get back down the hillside. Shall we go down the way we came or try an alternate route?
Looking upwards, you can see daylight. Those wooden beams don't look like they would have provided much support. The men who worked these mines were a brave lot (and obviously not claustrophobic).
Ted is checking out the rubble that has accumulated at the entrance to one of the shafts. Fortunately the shaft on the left led back to the mine entrance.
Looking down a vertical mine shaft inside the mine itself. It was a long way down!!
Old rusty pieces of equipment sat on the remnants of the railroad track leading to the mine entrance. Getting the men and equipment up to the mine and the ore down to the base of the mountain must have been an incredible feat.
This is all that remains of the wooden conveyor system used to load the ore cars.
We hiked further up the hill behind the cabin towards the mine which gave us a great view of the cabin and Castle Dome Peak.
Only four of us - Pete, Audrey, Ted and I - climbed all the way up to the Mine itself. At the base of the mine was a cabin in remarkably good shape. Unfortunately the outbuildings had not fared as well. Inside the cabin were a few pieces of furniture - wooden beds, shelves, an old stove, table and chairs. We signed the guest book to prove that we'd made it there!
There were so many of us it took two pictures to get us all in!! We had our lunch just a few kilometers from the mine. It was a popular destination that day and the parking lot below the mine itself was full so we took the opportunity to enjoy our lunch and each other's company until there was room in the lot for us.
We had a big crew on our desert trek that day - five vehicles and 20 trekkers. Here we are all lined up enjoying another one of those amazing lunches.
To get to our destination, the Big Eye Mine, we had to travel past Castle Dome Peak (and the smaller peak to its left known as the Thumb), part of the Castle Dome Range.
Here you can see the light at the end of the tunnel - always a good thing, I think.
Also located nearby was the entrance to a tunnel which went all the way through the hill to the other side; what its purpose was we're not really sure.
We paid our respects at a graveyard which was located nearby. The graves were likely those of miners who died working in the mine.
We stopped to check out an old mine site which I believe to be the Copper Cup mine. Ted was fixated on figuring out how deep the mine shaft was so he threw rock after rock after rock down the hole trying to figure out how long it took to hit bottom. Using that information he figured out the depth (with the help of the internet once we got home). It definitely kept him amused for a long time. We were worried he'd get to close to the edge and follow one of his rocks down the hole!
Thursday, February 12 - My sister and brother-in-law, Joyce and Ken, arrived from Saskatchewan the day before so it was only fitting that their first Yuma adventure be a desert trek - this time to the Big Eye Mine located in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. To get there we drove about 40 miles north of Yuma on Hwy 95 and took the first entrance into the Wildlife Refuge. The Refuge was established in 1939 to protect the Desert Bighorn Sheep and encompasses over 665,000 acres. You can't miss the huge remote-controlled white balloon soaring 10,000 feet above the desert floor tethered to an anchor pad below. Eleven of these balloons make up the Aerostat Radar Systems which stretch all the way to Puerto Rico.
Roy asked that anyone who stops by "add a rock or two if you want" to Lonesome's grave in his memory and, as you can see, it has become quite the headstone. We each added a rock and signed the guest book.
We stopped by the gravesite and memorial to Lonesome the Dog. Lonesome died in 1983 at the age of 15 and his master, Roy Morgan, a retired miner, buried him at this spot.
Hoodoos (on the right) made us think of the badlands around Drumheller. Our superhighway had narrowed to a single lane of gravel as we made our way back towards Yuma.
Various minerals in the soil gave the desert amazing colours.
Another view of Picacho Peak, flanked by Little Picacho on the right and "Tetas de Cabra" (meaning "teats of the goat") on the left.
Stark desert scenery - beautiful in its own unique way.
The Colorado River ran right in front of our picnic spot. Hard to believe it's the same river that we saw flowing through the Grand Canyon just a few weeks before.
Time for lunch at the Picacho State Recreation area. We have the most amazing lunches on these treks; of course everything tastes better when you're in the great outdoors!
The road took us past the Picacho Mine. Gold was originally discovered here in 1862 by Jose Maria Mendivil. Ownership of the mine changed hands frequently after 1880 and by 1897 the mine was flourishing. The boomtown of El Rio (later named Picacho) grew to a population of 2500 with over 700 people working the mines taking out more than $15,000,000 in gold. The mine closed in 1910 and El Rio became a ghost town. It reopened again in 1971 and is currently leased to Chemgold Inc. which is actively mining the site.
As you can see, southern Arizona is not all desert - lots of peaks and valleys.
We then carried on towards Picacho Peak - a 1500 ft. high volcanic outcrop and a landmark in the Chocolate Mountain Range. Driving down roads like this were the reason we bought our 4x4 Tracker although this road was like a superhighway compared to some we've travelled since.
However, I'm not sure if the wildlife outside the crevice wasn't scarier than the wildlife inside. At least they provided us with refreshments!
If you thought the tracks were fresh, you should have seen how warm and fresh the s**t was!! We decided that our curiosity had been satisfied and hightailed it out of there in a big hurry.
Curiosity got the best of us so Ted, Audrey and I headed into the crevice to see what we could see. It got rather narrow in a couple of spots.
Just outside the entrance to the crevice, we found a large cat track (and I don't mean kitty) - probably a cougar. Because it had rained the day before, we knew the paw prints were quite fresh.
Our first stop of the day was in a canyon where a large crevice divided two humongous rocks.
Sunday, February 8 - The day after the only rain we had seen so far in Yuma, Don, Cathy, Wayne, Audrey, John, Doris, Ted and I headed off to Picacho Peak State Park located about 20 miles north of Winterhaven. It's not very often you see water sitting like this in the desert. During and after a heavy rain, you will see the washes fill and the water run, but it usually seeps away quickly into the dry desert sand.
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