Whipple Mountains and Turtle Mountains Wilderness Areas

It has taken me some time to come to a point where I stopped looking at each area, compare it to the last one, vote better or worse and move on. At some point in your life you really have to start looking at things for what they are. Not what they might be, could be, should be or "compared to" whatever to find their true meaning or value. After we left Arches and Zion we found ourselves in the "desert". No longer in a canyon gorge or arch invested national park, but instead in the open expanse of central west Arizona. Parker Arizona to be exact. Yes there is the Colorado River, but move 1 mile from the lush green borders of the river and you enter a world where the green landscape icons are cacti. No sweeping arches, no vertigo creating canyons, no red rocks or snow capped La Sal Mountains. Here it is dry, brownish grey and to the human eye devoid of animal life. We decide to hike in two more wilderness areas while we were down here, the first "Whipple Mountains and the second Turtle Mountains.








Whipple Mountain wilderness is located south of Lake Havasu City and can be entered from numerous power line roads. We decided to enter from an area called Whipple Wash and hike into the canyon beyond. The area was just starting to turn light green from a previous light rain. The canyon would have been unnervingly quiet, except the day that we hiked we had a 30 mph wind. No animals, no birds, no nothing for 3 miles in.










We had a brief lunch in a small area where we could get out of the wind.












We hiked up several small side canyons to find ourselved choked out by vegetation.




Heading back to the car we started to discuss why we never seem to see any type of wildlife. We both showered, we try to walk quietly, I even put the camera in my backpack. Still nothing.



Just when I thought we would be hiking one more wilderness area with no animal sighting, we heard the most hilarious sound. I had never heard a burro before, and since he appeared to be having a huge hissy fit, the sound made me laugh so hard I thought I was going to pee my pants.


Granted we would have never known that the burro was there had he not annouced his presence.












So burros actually do exist in a natural setting.





Needless to say, maybe there is animal life teaming in these wilderness areas, they just have not be informed that they are to annouce themselves so that we can see them.



Some one needs to get the message out






Okay, so the second area was Turtle Mountains. We basically went here because John saw on a map that it was a great place to do rock hounding. So off we drove for an hour through some of the most un-entertaining landscape there is. Vidal Junction to Las Vegas. A vast wasteland of nothing. We miraculously found the turn off for the area and drove for about 5 miles out a "not maintained" 2 wheel drive road (according to BLM). For everyone else it is a 4 mile drive road only. We knew we were there since Arizona and California BLM wilderness areas are usually designated with really nice signs (shitty roads but nice signs)




We heading off on what appeared to be an old access road towards to the canyons. As we walked we noticed that there were tons of interesting rocks that we had not seen in any other area around Parker. Pretty soon we were miles into the canyon, not having seen much as we had been watching our feet looking for rocks.




John spent alot of time with his rock hammer seeing if he could find that one 5 pound gold nugget. No luck on the nugget by the way. We spent several hours just hiking around, enjoy the sun, the time together and the opportunity to be outside. It was then that I realized that while I was so busy worried about seeing an animal, I was missing seeing the area for what it had to offer. It is true desert. Hot, dry, and hostile but still beautiful. It is what it is.


Realizing that maybe I was being a little selfish, here getting to hike everyday while other people have to work, I remembered how fortunate I am.


Being retired and free to hike in an old boring canyon. Poor me. But it is what it is!