Gibralter Mountain and East Cactus Plains Wilderness Area

Believe it or not we are actually back at hiking in the wilderness areas. November and December were in Moab, UT volunteering for the national parks. Now we outside of Parker Arizona on the Colorado River. There are numerous wilderness areas surrounding us and we plan to get into as many as possible in the month and a half that we are planning on being here.

Arizona BLM has really nice signs for their wilderness areas and not so great directions or maps. We did the ever popular go out, drive around until you find a road that looks right, drive down, realize it is the wrong road and try again. Anyway we found the Gibraltar Mountain Wilderness fairly easy as there was a freaking big mountain to aim towards.

After being in Moab the scenery was amazing different and yet desert beautiful in the same way. Not expecting to see anything or having a specific destination allowed us to just wander and take in the surroundings.

Even though the Colorado River is less then 15 miles away, this is very dry landscape. We saw no wildlife, which is not unusual for us, on our hike thru the area.

We did see numerous varieties of cacti which I love.

We hiked for about 3 hours around the area and saw numerous rock formations while soaking up the sun.

Wanting to get to our second wilderness area we walked back to our car and heading for East Cactus Plains wilderness.

EAST CACTUS PLAINS.

We figured that this was one of those wilderness areas where four wheelers have basically tore it up, traded it to BLM as "wilderness" and got a brand new area to ride in.

There is basically open desert for as far as the eye can see. A power line borders one side and a military bombing area (heard did not see) in the distance. We took a short walk-a-bout thru the area to just look around.

The area was barren and yet pretty in a way that I cant really explain. If you have ever been in the desert, then you understand.

Beaver Dam Moutain Wilderness, St George, Utah

Okay, I know that is has been awhile since my last post. Lets just say that we have been on hiatus and are now back on our wilderness adventure. For the last two months, we have been in Moab Utah doing volunteer work for Arches National Park. The plan was to stay a month, do some work for the park, see the desert in the snow and move on. Our one month stay turned into two, and would have been longer had the weather cooperated. We met some great people at the park that wanted us to stay on longer and do some additional trail work, but the snow was not very accommodating. Before leaving the area we did however make arrangements to be back in the fall of 2009 after our Alaska trip. We did get to see the desert in the snow. It was amazing, the contrast between the red of Arches and the white of new snow. It is something that I think everyone should see at least once in their lifetime.

Leaving Moab, (we were hoping for warmer weather,_we have stopped in St. George Utah to explore some of the nearby wilderness areas and of course Zion National Park. We decided to explore the Beaver Dam Mountain Wilderness area that straddles Arizona and Utah. It is a small wilderness area that covers a 5 mile stretch on both sides of the BLM road.

We had beautiful weather that day, even though it was a little cold. The area has sporadic sections of brilliant red rock, lava flows and rolling gullies that look flat from far away. We decided to hike out to an area where the wall was red and there appeared to be a balancing rock. In route, we ran across and into numerous Joshua trees, which if you don't know are freaking prickly. We also saw numerous cacti, that someday I will actually learned that names of.

So we are back to our treks through the wilderness and seeing new things.

I hope that I never get bored with this new lifestyle, it is hard to imagine that as possible.

Especially when things like the below picture happen.

Black Ridge Canyon Wilderness

Rattlesnake Canyon, the 2nd highly concentration of natural arches in the United States, located in the Black Ridge Canyon Wilderness. One more wilderness to add to our list. It is a beautiful area that few people venture to see. First reason is mainly the location. There is only one road that gets to out to this remote location, one through Glade Park, CO. The other end of the road goes through Colorado National Monument. We had a week pass so went in through the park. It is a mere 13 miles from the turn off of the main road to the trailhead. But be aware those 13 miles took us over an hour to cover. It is probably one of the worse roads that we have driven on in awhile. The last 2 miles were the worse. Once at the trailhead we started down our hike. The whole hike is 3 miles out, not a loop. The first 2 miles takes out around the ridge with some scenic views but it is when you finally get around the ridge that you get the scenery.

One arch after the other in a mile distance.

This is one fantastic area. In the whole time that we were there we did not see another person.

This was probably one of my favorite hikes that we did.

Every time you rounded a corner, another arch or just scenic view awaited you.

If you have an extra day when in the Colorado National Monument Area, definitely do this hike. No People, great arches and classic desert scenery.

Eagle Cap Wilderness-Never What you expect

July 2, 2008

The plan was to complete our second hike in "wilderness" by hiking the Bowman Lake/Chimney Lake trail. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into.

As we looked into the mountain ranges that surrounded us on three sides we saw little evidence of large accumulations of snow.

Apparently we picked the trail where the snow had decided to settle for the summer. But more on that alittle later. The start of the trail was switchbacks that led straight up the side of a ridge. We could hear for a long time the distant sound of a waterfall. The sound kept me going up the hill with the prospect of some cold water to soak my hat.

The temperature that day was in the low 90's and the trail was on an exposed hillside. The waterfall was both beautiful and icy cold. Stopped there to take several pictures, wet hats and cool down in the mist.

We continued up several more switchbacks before we rounded a corner that showed us the beginning of the end of this days trail. We trudged thru several small snow patches that covered the trail, but were still passable. We met a young couple coming out on the trail that said that you could only walk about another 1/2 mile because of the "snow". We decided to continue walking and check out what they were talking about. About 1/2 mile later we ran across the snow that they were talking about and laughed.

We easily walked thru the snow and continued on our merry little way to Chimney Lake. From the surroundings, we figured that we were approximately 1 mile from the lake and really wanted to see this high alpine lake.

The snow crossings started to become more frequent but we still decided that it wasn't a problem. Then we entered a thicker section of forest and the fun stopped. Snow was knee deep and there were several creeks flowing high from the spring/summer runoff that were cutting under the snow.

We couldn't see the trail and following the directions in the hiking book were pointless. It stated that we would need to cross a "small creek", unfortunately there were 3 creeks running and they were far from small. We hiked around the area looking for a way across for about a half an hour. It was then that I looked at John, who was trying to figure out how to "jump" over this river, and said enough. We had only been retired for about 2 weeks and it seemed stupid to do something that might get one of us seriously hurt.

We heading back down the trail to the waterfall for lunch and the acceptance of the hike being incomplete. Then we both started laughing realizing that we could always come back. There was nothing stopping us from doing this hike at a later time when the snowfall maybe hadn't been so heavy. We realized that it is not about the destination, it is really about the journey.

"The Quest for Wilderness- Hiking the West One Wilderness At A Time"

June 30, 2008

For those of you that aren't aware, our daughter Sarah, provided John and I with a challenge to hike in every wilderness in the United States. Since neither of us wants, at this time, to cross the Mississippi we have modified that challenge to consist of wilderness West of the Mississippi. The remaining articles under the label of Wilderness will consist of pictures, trail descriptions and just our general experiences while trying to accomplish this challenge.

The first of our wilderness challenges placed us in Eagle Cap Wilderness. We chose this for several reasons. The first being that we were required to be back into Spokane for our other daughter's wedding in six weeks and didn't want to travel to far from home. The second being that we had already been in the area and were somewhat familiar with what we might be getting into. The third and last is simply the beauty of the area. A must for anyone to see whether by hiking or driving a car.


We spent 6 days in the state park campground at the end of the Wallowa Lake. The water entering the lake is glacial flow and cold as hell. The first 3 inches are warmed by the summer sun, but below that is freezing cold. We opted one day while kayaking, the temperature that day was in the 90's, to partake of the water and "lightly" floated on the surface.

The actual first hike that we did into the "Wilderness" was up the "East Fork Wallowa River. A 6 mile hike, one way, to Aneroid Lake with an elevation gain of approximately 3,000 feet. At 2.2 miles out you enter the "Eagle Cap Wilderness". This was the first official start to our challenge and we wanted to make sure that we got a picture of the boundary marker.

The remainder of our hike that day followed a "low maintenance" trail further into the wilderness. we stopped at about 3 1/2 miles out and had lunch but didn't stop for long. The horseflies were obnoxious and made for any attempted enjoyment of the area difficult. We decided to head home as we had a second hike scheduled for 2 days later and I had started to get blisters. The first of many on this adventure.

The area was beautiful, steep and quiet. Waterfalls were numerous and there were several opportunities for view of open meadows and the surrounding moutains.

I would love to say that some great spiritual connection occurred, but in all honestly I was a little out of shape and all I thought about was my huffing and puffing up the hills. Kept telling myself that this is what you get for having a desk job and that "No Pain, No Gain". I was glad that we did the hike and kept hoping that it would get easier for hikes we had planning in the future. Ha!, but that is for future blogs on later hikes.

For now lets just say it was a great way to start our challenge and led to another hike in the area.