I've gotten behind on keeping my blog up to date. Between working a lot, and getting ready for this camping trip, I haven't spent much time on the computer.

Last Saturday, I went for a pretty sweet ATV ride. I'd spent all Friday evening and even part of Saturday morning trying to decide what I was going to do, and finally I made up my mind to ride around the Woodside Anticline. I have never been too far off the main road through that area, and just recently it became safe to leave vehicles unattended there, so what better time to explore it? I couldn't talk Traci into coming and I ended up riding solo. I spent seven hours there and rode a total of 55 miles. I did something that I haven't done since I got a GPS--I went down there without having planned out my route beforehand. Normally I spend some time using my mapping software or Google Earth to decide where to go, but this time I just parked the truck, unloaded the ATV, and started exploring. I went down a couple of trails that dwindled down to singletrack trails and I had to backtrack, but eventually I found my way to Summerville Wash. There, I found an old stone cabin--one of two that I now know of in the area.

After crossing the entire anticline from east to west, I was on another main road that would eventually take me back to the truck, but I still had plenty of riding time left. I rode south past El Rancho Not So Grande and followed the old abandoned railroad grade to Cottonwood Wash. There was a geocache there that was placed months ago, but nobody had yet found it. I had no idea that Cottonwood Wash was so awesome. It's a canyon that cuts through what is technically a part of the San Rafael Reef, though the uplift in that area isn't nearly as spectacular as it is farther south. The formations in the Navajo Sandstone are awesome, though, and I'm sure I'll go back to play around some more. I found the geocache there easily, but I wasn't able to find the petroglyphs that are nearby. I ended up hiking about a mile up the canyon before turning around and heading back to the ATV, then I sped back to the truck. Here are a few photos from the trip, and here is a Google Earth .KML file that includes my GPS tracklog and a few waypoints.

I spent Sunday getting a few things ready for the camping trip, including an hour and a half of splitting firewood (my back and shoulders are still sore). On Monday I went on a hike with some other geocachers to the geocache that I placed last year on the mountain above Kenilworth. Tuesday (yesterday) evening I worked for several hours loading all of our camping gear into the truck and trailer, and I did a lot more of that today. We left town at around 4:00 pm and got to our campsite a little before 6:00 this evening.

We were, as usual, the first ones here. I'm in the Swell now, sitting in the camp trailer as I type this, after having had a bit of excitement after dinner. I had grabbed the boys' helmets out of the truck so we could go on a short ATV ride, and when I got back from the ride Traci asked my for my keys to the truck. I told her that they were in the ignition and she could have gotten them at any time, to which she replied that the truck was locked. Shit. I guess out of habit I'd locked the doors, but my key was in the ignition and Traci's keys were in the truck too. My cell phone was in the truck, Traci's phone battery was dead, and her laptop (with wireless card) was also in the truck. We don't even have a spare key at home, so being able to use the phone or internet wouldn't have been of much use. After considering all of our options, we tried breaking into the truck. I wanted to avoid breaking a window, but using a screwdriver to pry at the rear sliding window and attempting to break the interior latch made it feel like the glass was going to break. I tried to gently force one of the lock cylinders to turn with a screwdriver, but that didn't work. My next idea was to force a piece of wire through the weather stripping on the wing window to try and hit the power unlock button. I couldn't get enough downward force on the wire to push the button, so I used pliers to form a small hook on the end of the wire and tried pulling up on the "Lock" side of the rocker switch. The wire was too thick to fit between the gap around the switch, and Traci suggested that I try hammering the wire to thin it out. After setting the end of the wire on a rock and giving it a few blows with a hammer, the hook on the end was much thinner. I managed to slide it in between the gap around the switch, then I pulled on the wire and the doors unlocked! It's a good thing I had all of my tools with me on this trip.

So, the plan for the rest of the weekend is to just chill. I've been working a lot of overtime at work, and I really need a vacation. More people will be showing up here tomorrow, and I'm sure we'll get out for a lot of ATV riding and hiking and, of course (my favorite) sitting around the campfire and bull-shitting.

It was a pretty good Easter this year. I guess it's becoming a tradition for us to spend Easter in the San Rafael Swell with my sister's family, since we've now done it three years in a row (here are posts from 2007 and 2008). I really wanted to stay away from the hordes of people camping in the Swell--it's always bad down there on Easter weekend--so we drove out to Box Flat. The last mile of road going to Box Flat is extremely rough and there's no way anybody would bring a camp trailer out there, so we were at least guaranteed some privacy. We parked at a sheltered and sandy spot near the bottom of the horse trail leading to Jackass Flat. We sat around a campfire, ate lunch, and hiked around and explored the area. Mark and I set up a scavenger hunt for the kids by hiding some Easter goodies and marking waypoints with our GPS units, while Traci and Samantha kept the kids occupied. Then we handed over the GPS units to the kids and let them go find the stashes.

We did see some other people out there--a large group on ATVs--and unfortunately they parked right next to our camp so they could hike over to Jackass Flat. Other than that, I enjoyed that we had the place mostly to ourselves. I did several short hikes around the area, in between checking on the dutch oven peach cobbler. I found the remains of an old cowboy camp, including a stove and bed frame, and what looked like a sandstone cabin foundation, although there were no timbers remaining. I also placed a geocache atop an interesting knoll of Navajo Sandstone.

I can't wait to go back to Box Flat. This was my third time there, and each time I've seen things that warrant a return trip for further exploration. There's also a lot of country to the south and east that's in a wilderness study area and would take considerable effort to explore on foot, and I hope to do just that in the future.

---

Easter '09 - Box Flat Photo Gallery

The lousy weather we've been having lately finally let up today, so I went for a ride on my four-wheeler near Kenilworth. It was basically the same ride I'd done with my family last May, though this time I had been studying the area in Google Earth and had found some other interesting things to check out. The first place I went was Bull Hollow. The last time I was there, a boulder that had fallen and landed in the middle of the trail stopped us from going any farther on our ATVs. This time I had a shovel, and I spent about 10 minutes leveling the trail out so the boulder could be negotiated without scraping my fenders on it. From the end of the trail in Bull Hollow, I hiked up a very steep and rocky slope to see an old wooden water tank. It's not visible from the trail in the bottom of the canyon, and it was barely visible in Google Earth. I doubt that many people have been up there in recent years, or even know it's even there. On my way up the mountainside to the water tank, I stumbled across a very scary old mine portal that had long ago been buried, but the fill dirt is starting to slide downhill and now there's a 10-15' drop straight down into the mine tunnel. Torrey almost fell in it, and if she had I don't think I could have ever gotten her out. When I got to the water tank, I was surprised to only find the wooden base--all the vertical slats were gone, as were the metal bands that once held it together. Strangely, there was no trail or road leading up there, and no sign that anybody had ever brought so many materials up or down the mountain. On my way back down the road in Bull Hollow I had planned on hiking/scrambling up a huge overburden pile to another mine, but the slope was covered in snow and I decided to skip it for today and try again later in the year.

Next, I rode across the Clay Banks to Cordingly Canyon. Near where the road forks in that canyon, in Google Earth I'd spotted what looked like a concrete foundation near the Milburn/Arronco mine. I scrambled up several sandstone ledges to get there, and found that it was indeed a concrete foundation, though it once supported another water tank. This one was missing most of its wooden base and vertical slats, but the metal bands were still there. The shape of the concrete foundation helped me identify this structure that I'd seen in Bull Hollow last year. After looking the area over and almost placing a geocache there (I changed my mind after not being able to find a good hiding spot), I rode farther up the left fork of Cordingly Canyon. The snow at the end of the road was still several feet deep, so I wasn't able to hike around like I'd hoped to, so I ate a late lunch there, then rode back to the truck and headed home.

---

Bull Hollow & Cordingly Canyon Photo Gallery