On Tuesday, we decided to drive Puerto Blanco Drive and try a couple of hiking paths along the route...
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We stopped at the Visitor Center to make sure that the roads and trails we were planning to take were open and accessible - the park ranger confirmed that they were and we were off...
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... well, almost off! We stopped to take a picture of this really small truck camper that came in as we were about to leave. I looked up information online -- https://www.kimboliving.com/about-us
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The text on the website associated with the truck campers indicates:
The
idea for Kimbo campers came from Mark King's love of the outdoors and
inspiration from the inside of a nuclear submarine, the USS Alabama,
which his father lead as Captain. Mark is an inventor and entrepreneur
who has been designing wallets and outdoor gear with his company - Trayvax.
Never one to settle for average, Mark has been exploring simple living
for years. Since 2013, at the start of Trayvax, his residence had been a
19' Airstream, but after a couple years he started to think he could
live with less.
He
wanted a home that would allow him to be untethered by the expense,
maintenance and excess of modern life but there wasn't anything on the
market that fit his needs. He also wanted to be comfortable when he hit
the road exploring and camping in the Pacific NW. So being an inventor
and fabricator, he started building his own camper in 2016. After living
in it for 6 months, eventually driving over 30,000 miles around the
country, Mark brought his passion to market.
We think it would be much too small for our comfort, but glad they exist for those who want them!
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We got to the trailhead for the Dripping Springs Trail but decided that we had better go ahead and eat our lunch as it was already noon! We had packed a lunch and there was a picnic table...
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And beautiful views around us...
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The Jeep, unfortunately, is no longer bright and shiny, but hopefully it is just a layer of dust that we can wash off eventually! No need to clean it up yet as it will just get dirty again!
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Trail profile - our plan was to just go to Dripping Springs...
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| Map |
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Legend for map
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Information about the trail
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More information about the trail
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While we were on the two-track road, we saw this saguaro which looked really odd - usually they are so upright and their arms are lifted up to the sky too. This one seemed to have taken a wrong turn, but the ends of the arms and the main stalk seem to be turning back around. I should have gotten Carl to stand in the picture for perspective -- it was probably 12-15' tall, even though it is curled over on itself.
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On the two-track road
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Looking back across the valley - again, perspective is hard to realize in the picture - it seemed we could see for 50 miles or more, but we're not certain.
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We got to the fork in the trail with the left going to the Ridge and the right going to the Spring. We headed toward the spring.
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Carl coming up to the fork in the path.
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Patti at the fork
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The Dripping Spring. The interesting thing that I did not remember from the time Dwayne and I were here in 2015 was how many bees there were in the spring. The sign at the trailhead had warned us not to swat at the bees because they could start to swarm. We kept at a distance. It was so odd to see a spring here in the midst of the desert.
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Even though our plan was just to hike to the Dripping Spring, Carl suggested we keep on going to the ridge, and so we did!
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Another view of the valley where we had started from further up...
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At this point, we were on the ridge - and it was really windy! A picture of Carl with an Organ Pipe and a Saguaro cactus to give perspective on how big they are.
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I was standing in a saddle area along the ridge - the wind was really whipping through the saddle.
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This is the view west - over the saddle and on the other side of the ridge.
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Selfie at the ridge - my hat's string tie was wrapped around my neck to keep it on!
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Carl decided to climb higher up the ridge - he is the very small white figure at the base of the rock outcropping.
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He took a picture of me in the saddle area -- though I had moved behind a large rock to block the wind -- I'm the small white object in the lower left of the picture.
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Of course, if you climb up, then you have to figure out how to get down... Carl decided to use the sit-your-bottom-down-and-slide technique for part of the trip down.
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He then came down the other side of the saddle, which required figuring his way along a non-trail route, but thankfully he made it safely.
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On the trail heading down
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Back on the two-track road
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A saguaro with an interesting grouping of small arms...
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Zoomed in, you can possibly tell that the top of the saguaro had broken off... and left a few of the "bones" of support structure of the cactus sticking out the top. Since we had just recently been in Mexico where it seemed that all of the buildings had been left with rebar sticking out the top, we figured that this was a Mexican built saguaro and they left it unfinished so it wouldn't be taxed...
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After our hike, we continued driving along Puerto Blanco Drive...
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... eventually stopping at Golden Bell Mine, now protected from entry.
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We had seen these stations in a couple of places - this one we got close enough to see that it has an emergency beacon if someone needs help. There are also places within this desert area that have water barrels available if someone is in need of water.
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A fuller picture of the emergency beacon - we think it is also a weather station - with our dirty Jeep next to it!
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Quitobaquito is right at the border - a view of the fence from near where we parked to walk to the spring / pond.
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We were glad to make it back to the rig and get our boots off and more comfy shoes on!
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