This morning, I had originally planned on driving past the peak where I got rained out last weekend, but the exact second I topped out at the peak, it started raining. This time I had Traci and Michael with me, and we decided to just drive down the muddy hill again and try our luck elsewhere. I wasn’t all that familiar with the area, so we drove up Indian Canyon and took the turnoff that leads to Reservation Ridge. I knew that road was supposed to lead to Soldier Summit, but I’d never been on it before, so I didn’t know what was in store. We didn’t leave town prepared to go on a long drive, but we were gone for four hours total–luckily, we had enough milk and Pringles to keep Michael happy for the entire duration of the trip.
We saw a few deer, and a lot of beautiful country. It had hailed not long before we went up Indian Canyon, and some of the peaks were white with it. There were a few places from which we could see US-6, which served as a reference point so we could tell exactly where we were. Most of the time, it felt like we were far away from any type of civilization, which we actually were. We only passed one other vehicle on the entire stretch of dirt road. When we were back on the highway, we kept looking off to the east to see if we could see the road we were on, and sure enough, there it was. I’ve driven on that highway hundreds of times, and I’d never noticed the dirt road winding around the ridgeline several miles distant until today.
Round trip from the paved road at Indian Canyon to the paved road at Soldier Summit was about 27 miles, and the Subaru handled it all quite nicely. There were several roads that dropped off the ridge down into other canyons, and I’d like to eventually return and explore many of them. When we got near Soldier Summit, we started scoping out camping spots, because we’re going camping somewhere in that area the weekend of August 17th.
I think next weekend we’ll drive from Sheep Creek to Little Baldy Mountain, which is where we saw a black bear cub two years ago. There was a really nice spot to camp there, but I don’t know how I feel camping at a spot where I’ve personally seen a bear just ¼ mile away. I’d also like to drive to Strawberry Reservoir while I’m that close to it, but I’ve never actually been before and I’m not sure I can find my way. We’ll see if I can, because Traci really wants to go there too.