Hiking here around Mittry Lake, just 15 miles north of flat Yuma, requires a bit of imagination, invention, and adventure. While there are literally hundreds of trails rimming the brown, pink, mauve, and grayish-green mountains that surround us, not one of them is an “official” trail. Often times, the only choices available are Jeep trails versus sheep trails.
Jeeps coming down the impossibly steep trail from “The Sign,” one of our navigational landmarks.
There is often a lot of creativity expressed in the cairns along the trail. Many are topped with quartz stones.
There are a few significantly placed cairns (rocks stacked in a pyramid to indicate people have gone before us) but that trail can just as quickly diminish into an indistinguishable field of scattered rocks.
As we walk the ridge line, it’s not uncommon to think we are on a sheep trail, then we reach the summit and find someone has marked the direction of egress with polished black stones that rival a decorative landscaping job. Eventually the people trails fade back into sheep trails, and we must revert to the ubiquitous jeep trails to get us back to a familiar landmark.
Sugarloaf Mountain is calling…
A blurry, zoomed shot of a jeep caravan.
There are no brown trail signs, no trail maps, nor do the jeep trails even show up on the Backcountry Navigator app. We are left to our own devices to find our way back, and given the propensity for those “devices” to have short battery life or get left behind altogether, redundancy is key.
C. B. joins us for a hike.
It’s rough and rugged out here with very few landmarks for navigation. I get a serious “smack down” on my first day, when I think I can boldly go it alone. I walk for five miles along the maze of interconnecting trails with no problem, but lose my way within a quarter mile of the camp. Having retraced my steps twice, and now well past my “If I am not back by 2:00pm, come look for me” time frame, I meet Chris on the trail on his way up to look for me. From that point on, we stick to the rule that “No one goes out there alone.”
Somewhere amidst this camouflage run two very happy dogs…
If I had a dollar for every time we said “This doesn’t look familiar,” or “I don’t remember ever having gone this way,” I could have hired a cartographer. It is total mind-body coordination, piecing together a route that will not only link to one of only three known points of egress, but also circumventing obstacles like cliff edges, steep, rocky slopes, or an impassable canal that runs through the mountain and then reappears on the other side.
No bridges over the canal. You can only cross when it runs under the mountain.
“I think we need to be over there!”
We are not lost, we are exploring…
But the fun of it is getting “lost” and finding our way back again, with the goal being to never backtrack, and not to hike the same trail more than twice in the two weeks we have been here. It is a fun puzzle challenge for us “Peter Pan” types who entertained ourselves as kids with our own inventive games. This is a game of exploration, discovery, and survival in our “back yard,” just right outside the Winnie!
We come to the edge of a cliff and can go no further. Chris and Gayle at the edge…
Chris (and Rupert) climb higher to find a way around.
Eventually, we have begun to establish names for the hikes according to certain landmarks. There is the “Sign Trail” that goes up to the top of the tallest hill, the “Lake Loop” which skirts the canal, and my favorite, the “Ridge Trail” that gets us high and keeps us high.
A preview of the J. Peterman 2015 Spring catalog.
See that dot on the horizon? Peterman has broken from the pack.
But the best part of all? We have the place all to ourselves! After many days of hiking from three to six miles per day, these are the only other hikers we have encountered on the trail.
Gayle: “You aren’t going to ram us, are ewe?”
SHEEP! We saw these beauties two days in a row. So majestic! Each time they watched us, but weren’t as skittish as one might think. Well, it was the day after Chinese New Year, and after all, it is “The Year of the Sheep!” We thanked them for their well maintained sheep trails!
The thing I wonder about is how you manage to feel clean when boondocking for weeks at a time and hiking daily in hot weather????? I know you have to conserve water and a Navy shower just wouldn’t cut it for me every day! To each his own I guess 🙂
Looks like you are having a grand time…and those sheep were a wonderful find!
Lisa — I shower on every hike day, whether I need it or not. LOL! The only benefit of not having “a Hans” to travel with is not having to share the Winnie’s tiny tanks. 😉 I can get three weeks out of them if I bring in water occasionally, and there is a “five gallons for fifty cents” fill station near the main road…and a dump station about 10 miles away.
There are definitely benefits to the single life! 🙂
Yeah, but I would trade some space in my tank for that roast pork loin. 😉
I love those sheep – beautiful and so majestic. They sure “own” their land, don’t they? Happy Year of the Sheep, sheep. Great hiking shots, as usual. 🙂
Hi, Barbara — I hope you and Katie are enjoying your new back yard. Maybe our paths cross again before too long…
Great shots of those sheep! And that jeep trail is crazy…no way I would drive that. I’d be passed out from fear before the first hill LOL,
Nina
You and me both, my friend….you and me both! Once the grade exceeds 30 degrees, I want both feet firmly planted on the ground!
Haha! Outstanding post! Love all your little puns! J. Peterman should have a great spring catalog:)
This just looks like heaven to me. How totally neat to be on an unknown adventure every day out. The Ridge trail looks wonderful! Love those sheep:) Isn’t it amazing how tame the sheep are. I think they are as curious as we are:)
Pam — I could have hiked that ridge trail over and over. It was my favorite. You and John would have loved exploring up there. And yes, I agree, I think those sheep are curious creatures. We had quite a staring contest going for a while. 😉
You are all very adventurous but good rule of no hiking alone. Being I tend to hike solo so frequently I’ll stick to or close to the marked trails, be they for people, jeep or sheep.
Hi, Gaelyn…yes, I am afraid it is back to the marked trails for me as well, as my hiking buddies are all going their separate ways. ;-(
We have a winner of the Photo Essay Contest – the sheep with Gayle in the foreground. Fabulous!
Funny thing is, those were her exact words, but I don’t think either of us realized the puns until after the fact…
The sheep blew me away, what beautiful animals! Frankly after the earlier pictures I was amazed that any animal that large could live there.
Just noticing, you take lots of pictures, they are just back focused, giggle…
I grew up in the Adirondack mountains of northern NY state and since most of my wandering was alone I was taught by the old timers that being lost is a state of mind and one should never enter that state. It worked, there were times that I did not know how to get where I wanted to be for sometimes hours, but I was never lost and always got out safely. It just took a little longer.
Thanks, Allen…I was not too worried about getting lost, as I had plenty of water and food, and I could see distant landmarks. My limiting factor was time, as I had given a return time to my friends, and knew they would be coming. I didn’t want to start out in one direction, and miss them coming the other direction! I agree about the size of the sheep. I just don’t see enough out there to feed an animal that large!
Hiking the same area, with distinctive topographic features and open sight lines, would have been the perfect time to be learning map and compass skills. Buy a USGS topo next time and give it a whirl. Add the adventure of routefinding to your explorations!
And, my dear awning fixer friend, just where do you propose I buy this topo map in the desert? (Watching my email…LOL!)