21 December 2014 Taking a dusting at Picacho
This is where we wanted to be:
But first you have to travel over 18 miles of this:
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| Yup - that's loose gravel. Fun 4 wheel drifitng. Ow! Did you punch me? |
and this:
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| Cool! Another corner! |
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| Suspend disbelief here. Imagine that car is being skilfully drifted around the hairpin. Ignore brake lights and lack of dust. |
passing this:
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| This mining operation shut down in 2002. Road gets worse after here. |
until you get to here:
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| Beautiful primitive sites. |
And reaching the campground tells you that you overshot the
turnoff to the Stamp Mill Trail. Not very far back. Hardly worth arguing. Did
it anyway.
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| Trail starts off somewhat steep. |
Focused on mining, the town here peaked around 2500
residents. Full scale mining ended in 1910 followed by flooding of most of the
site in 1938 when the Imperial Dam was completed. Yes, I know you don’t care.
Neither do I. But this is the only way I could think of to work in some nice
pictures of the Colorado
shores and the rest of the this cool trail.
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| Looking northwest at the river. |
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| And northeast. |
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| Trail is well marked. |
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| Norene said this was pretty. I'm too chicken to disagree. |
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| I'm not going in the "jail" |
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| You are. |
After this you get to go up Ice Cream Wash
– a small climb to the Railroad Canyon Trail.
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| Looking down the wash toward the river. Did not find any ice cream. |
Didn’t think to bring a telephoto lens along (newbie). Chased
some Gambel’s Quail for a while and finally gave up after realizing I wasn’t
going to get better than this:
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| Purple smudge highlights Quail. Slippery little buggers. |
Heard this burro snorfing before seeing him. He didn’t know
I’m too lazy to climb all the way up there. Not wanting to deal with an attack
donkey we moved along.
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| Mule is in the middle of the picture. You don't have to say "take telephoto" twice |
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| Open concept plan. |
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| Mother and offspring hanging out by the exit. |
Since the last part of the 4 1/2 mile trek was on an almost
level road we don’t get to whine about the effort. Weather was in the perfect
upper 60’s and sunny. I did get a little dust on one shoe which may sideline me
for a day or two.
