We had found another nice, sandy, right-sized, dry campsite up above the river.
A rounded rocky nose on our side of the creek, and a fuller dome on the other side
we saw a few fat lizards
yellow buckwheat and purplish unidentified flowers
and some more paintbrush
this is only one of two photos that indicate that Ben's supply of energy was not actually infinite. I gotta find out what those wild pink-edged plants are behind him
There was a pair of curious Mountain Quail, observing our progress. You can sorta tell that the crest on the upper quail is a different shape from our more common California quail
our path down to the river took us past this impressive cliff, so we had to stop in the shade and eat some Clif bars
there were a couple of ways over the next ridge. As usual, I investigated the brushy route, while Ben and Lindsay scouted the climbers' route
Meanwhile, Mark and Ben went down to the creek to filter some water. Here, they're just returning
Along this detour south of the creek, the route passes between a couple of small map-indicated lakes. At least one of them still has water in it
Small manzanita, growing in granite
They have the "harvest moon" and the "hunter's moon" ... let's call this one the "granite moon". Compare with the gibbous moon of just a couple of days earlier
Despite the extreme dryness of this season, there were still a couple of spots with a sheen of moisture trickling down from Kibbie Ridge
The final descent from this detour away from the creek takes us down across a large expanse of granite slabs, actually kinda fun to walk down
I suspect that some times of year, that whole dark section is sheeting with water. For now, the traction is great
Little pink wildflowers to identify
Another trickly sheen. I'd love to be here in June, and see whether that's a cascading waterfall
See the pool with reeds, just right of (behind) Ben?
Turns out, it's cattails!!
Or maybe they're corndogs! Hard to tell, though. I don't think corndogs grow wild in California.
Lower, it got a bit steeper. And just past Ben, there's a small cliff to climb down
Looking back up ... we just came down from that notch, just to the right of the low dome
Finally regaining the river, but next up is another narrow stretch, certainly impassible in a normal year, probably even non-navigable this year. At any rate, we followed Ben Schifrin's advice, and climbed up a bit south of the creek
Some cool pools
Ben and a venerable juniper or cedar. He's still having fun
I miscalculated a bit ... according to Schifrin, we were supposed to "... stay just under the 5600-foot level on rotting ledges of diorite cut by multitudes of lighter dikes." Instead, I steered us higher, and the climbing got pretty dicey. We should have stayed lower, where it then slopes gently down to creek level. I probably lost us an hour or two due to this miscalculation
After we came to dangerous-looking dead ends, we headed back, afraid that we might have to return all the way to the river and try the north side. Happily, part way back on the return, we discovered a decent way down to the creek. Found a nice little waterfall and fishing spot. Mark and Ben got some fish to chase their lures and bait, but none bit.
The water in this pool was very green
Action shot of Ben, casting. I need a new camera :-(
cool striated rock under this pool on the creek
The Phantom Of the Granite
Along here somewhere is the area that Ben Schifrin describes as " ... the most idyllic spot in the entire Cherry Creek canyon, and possibly in Emigrant Wilderness. Here Cherry Creek runs up to 70 feet wide, and 7 feet deep, over foot-soothing sand and gravel ..."
I suspect that where Ben L. is standing, Cherry Creek is usually at least two or three feet deep.
Nice granite overhang.
During our earlier misadventure, we had seen a hawk soaring above that cliff. I couldn't find any hawks in my bird books whose plumage matched this one — it might have been a Rough-Legged Hawk, but also might have been a red-tail with unusual coloring. (Light wings with dark wing tips, and a dark body). It was amazing to me that this was the only hawk we saw during the entire trip! (This image of a redtail, from the Arizona Game & Fish agency, looks close to the coloring we saw.)
As we continued downstream
, the going continued to be somewhat ambiguous. We finally got down to the point of recognizing the ridge-rib that we were supposed to climb over, and again Ben and Lindsay scouted out a good way to climb up to the use-trail over the ridge, and it was just about dark by the time we were descending the very steep trail on the other side, that leads back down to the creek. (At that point, most of us were hiking by headlamp.)
We had said
that we'd be back at the trailhead by this afternoon, but the next segment — from here over to the trailless ramp that climbed back up to the parking area — looked uncertain, especially in the dark. So we decided to spend one more night here, get up early, and hike out the next day.
At our morning filtering spot, the sun is just beginning to touch the top of the ridge. See rocks underwater, above water, reflected in the water, and sky. Try to locate precisely where the water's edge is...
Lindsay, Heather and Mark, filtering water for the climb
Ben filtering water. One of my favorite shots of the whole trip.
Little blurry red trumpet-flowers to identify
Little blurry orange trumpet-flowers to identify
Upon our return, it turned out that the sheriff had been contacted. After we turned up OK, he showed us some of the most recent "family band" radios that we might have been able to use, to let Mary and Marty know that we were just moving slower than expected. He handed out "baseball cards" with his picture.
My knees and shins, worse for the wear compared to the pre-trip photo.
Mary's photo of the five of us, back at camp. I think I had Lindsay's orange water bottle surgically attached to my pinkie. Lindsay is holding one of Dan's sheriff cards.