I decided today that I was going to see the Grand Canyon at sunrise, then do my walk down into the canyon. One of the rangers had advised that Mather Point was a good place to see the sunrise. So I manage to drag my ass out of bed early, an extraordinary thing for what I hoped would be an extraordinary sunrise.
I woke up early, well, early for me. The inside of the RV was just beginning to lighten up, telling me it was around 7am. I lay there for a few minutes, thinking I might get back to sleep. Then I thought about what I was going to do today – I was going to see the Grand Canyon. There would be no more sleep for me, time to get up and go!
I had been camped for over a week at Bouse Y. I had hiked as many of the hills as I had wanted to hike. I had been with a great group of people. But, it was time to move on, at least if I wanted to get away from the impending race crowd. I had a general plan: head north.
You will note after my last posting, I turned right at the fork to head to the mines. The fork to the left led to something called a “Retort Oven” on the map. What could this be?
It occurred to me that I could use some topographical maps to see what kind of things of interest were in the area, and how I might get to them by foot. There is an app for that.
Continue reading
Today I decided to do a little more ambitious hike, to a hill I could see in the distance. Since I had a whole morning, I figured I’d see what there was to see further on the horizon.
The area south of Bouse besides being full of hills is full of holes. Little test pit holes, that people prospecting in the past have dug. Larry told me that in World War II, the area was used for shelling practice, so the occasional hole may not be a pit. Evidently, brass shell casings are still to be found occasionally in the area. I never did get to the Bouse Military Historic Display, but I did see the tanks situated by the road.
After spending a day travelling, a day getting stuck, a day getting unstuck and a day scouting, I was happy to just stay put for a day. In fact, I was perfectly happy to stay put for the next several days. The spot I had found was a bit of desert concrete that has been turned into a parking lot – it is fenced off as to exactly where you can be. I’m level, and there are hills to the south I can hike to. Plus, three Patreons have shown up, giving me some socialization to do rather than being in solitude.
My goal today was to find a spot with firm ground that our little group of Patrons could find and camp on. Cell signal, solitude and sun would be bonuses if I happened upon them.
The day dawned cool and a a little wonky feeling. Then I remembered. I was sleeping the other way in the bunk to have my head uphill in the sort of level spot I was sitting on, having gotten stuck last night. I wasn’t sleeping anymore at that point – was already thinking about how we were going to tow my rig 400 feet back to the known solid ground at the entrance to area we were in.
