Tangential Adventures

Writing this post at the end of day 4… yesterday was our busiest day so far. We woke at Jumbo Rocks campground after a pretty chilly night, probably in the upper or mid 20s. When we got up the first time around 6:15, everything was covered in frost. We stared at the sunrise for a bit and decided to go back to sleep until it warmed up a bit.  It was much warmer when we got up the second time, so we set out sleeping bags and tent to dry in the sun while we had a hot breakfast and sorted gear for the day’s adventures.

We decided we would do a day hike to the peak of Ryan Mountain in the morning, and later in the afternoon drive down to the base of the Hexie Mountains and backpack out along the Fried Liver Wash and sleep out in the backcountry.

The Ryan hike is about 1000′ of vertical gain, and about 1.5 miles long. We made decent time on our way up, pausing occasionally for water and photo ops. As we got near the top, we passed someone that said it was about 10 more minutes, and we’d have it to ourselves. He was correct, and we got to enjoy the stunning views of the different deserts, rock outcroppings, and mountains both near and far.

We had packed supplies for lunch, so we found a good spot and feasted on bread (corn tortillas in J’s case), avocado, manchego cheese, and in my case, chili covered mango slices. That is definitely one for the as-yet-nonexistent sandwich blog. Yum.

We had the summit to ourselves for most of lunch, and then people started showing up. It was also getting much windier, and even though we had brought appropriate layers, we decided to make our way down and continue our day’s adventures. Here’s a map of the Ryan Mountain hike:

	#	Elevation	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Movingspeed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	1284 m	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-	-
	2	1345 m	3.009 mi	2h 40m 50s	2h 40m 40s	1.12 mph	1.12 mph	4.14 mph	1430 ft	1227 ft
Summary			3.009 mi	2h 40m 50s	2h 40m 40s	1.12 mph	1.12 mph	4.14 mph	1430 ft	1227 ft

After the Ryan hike, we set our course for the park’s famed Geology Tour Road, which started out as a very nice smooth sandy road, on which I had the requisite fun driving the little rental car. Large puddles still remained from the rains earlier in the week, but they were easily avoided. Things got a lot more interesting when we hit the “4 Wheel Drive Recommended” section, and indeed the road was in much sketchier condition. Loose sand, big rocks, ruts, etc. Indeed, I needed to get out of the car a couple of times to groom the big rocks, but we eventually made it to the backcountry sign-in board. I am glad I have had a lot of experience from rallycross driving on loose, slippery conditions, both because we made it down in one piece, and because it was fun in the less sketchy sections where I had to be careful.

We signed in at the backcountry board, loaded up water and the last bits of gear we needed and set off on the backpacking trip. We were planning a fairly short hike in, maybe about 3 miles, and finding a good spot to camp for the night. The trail followed an old mining road, and often found its way through sandy wash. This desert was much more “proper” desert, with none of the funky rock outcroppings of Jumbo Rocks, but lots of desolation. Even the Joshua Trees were in short supply for much of the hike, as if to say, “hey, you know, the desert is a harsh place.”

All through our trek we spied signs of old mining activity on the Hexie hillside, and occasionally strewn on the desert floor. Indeed, our ultimate aproximate destination was the start of a hike up to an old abandoned mine, and just beyond we found very telling artifacts of that era. An old stone house, either collapsed or simply incomplete, stood a short distance away from what I can only describe as a canned goods graveyard, littered with hundreds of rusting, opened cans.

We pressed further, looking for a good spot to set up camp, and eventually we did find something that was sufficiently out of the obviously recently damp wash, but flat and large enough for our needs. We quickly set the tent up, and J offered to unpack the sleeping bags and sleeping pads while I started on our planned easy freeze-dried dinners.

Well, that would have been all well and good, but in my repacking and reshuffling earlier in the day, I managed to stow the aforementioned flame-proof matches with the wrong stove. Unfortunately the piezo igniter on my little stove failed during a very cold backpacking trip a couple of years ago, so that wasn’t going to be any help. As a last-ditch effort to redeem myself in the eyes of my by now, long-suffering backpacking companion, I attempted to MacGuyver a solution using six NiMH batteries in series and shorting them to make a spark. It did in fact make sparks, but apparently not hot enough to ignite the isopropane gas. Fail and fail.

J, who mercifully is an understanding and experienced backpacker and has had to suffer various miserable nights in the past, urged me to give it up and we’d feast on cheese and energy bars. As my penance, we would hydrate one of the freeze-dried meals and it was my job to warm it up with my body heat, marsupial style. I can’t say the end result was good exactly, but it wasn’t awful – and we needed calories.

After that miserable flop for dinner (and much-deserved teasing), and with a cloudy sky unfit for star gazing, we decided to turn in at the late-night hour of 6:30. Thankfully this night, and this lower elevation, made for warmer conditions. At the very least, we might be more comfortable on a quiet night, as the only souls out on Fried Liver Wash.

Here is our hike in from the back-country board to our backcountry camp site:

	#	Elevation	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Movingspeed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	999 m	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-	-
	2	948 m	3.759 mi	2h 23m 30s	2h 22m 06s	1.57 mph	1.59 mph	88.76 mph	318 ft	486 ft
Summary			3.759 mi	2h 23m 30s	2h 22m 06s	1.57 mph	1.59 mph	88.76 mph	318 ft	486 ft