The seasons are definitely changing in southern Utah and that means we must begin to shift our hiking away from the higher elevations and into the lower deserts for the winter months. After receiving a glorious two inches of rain on Friday (and snow in the mountains) it was time to make that move.
True to his nature, Tom gave us a call and said he had a short hike for us just west of the Beaver Dam Wash Conservation Area. Even though we aren't big fans of desert hiking, we were "itchy" to get out and so when he said there was a benchmark and a nearby spring to check out (we love finding springs in the desert), we were in!
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We had to pass through St. George on our way west of the Beaver Dam Mountains
After all the rain, from the day before, we were able to experience a desert rarity - fog!
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The sun was rising off to our east while a layer of fog covered the valley
(Somewhere below that layer is St. George) |
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Today we are searching for benchmarks . . .
This nondescript knoll is supposed to have an azimuth marker and a benchmark . . .
kind of a rarity to have both so close to each other |
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| We found the Joshua Azimuth Mark first . . . the arrow points toward the Benchmark |
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It turned out to be a beautiful day . . . the rain gave us clear skies and good visibility
(Looking north towards Lime Mountain - center of picture) |
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| This colorful barrel cactus stood out in the desert landscape |
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Tom and Kent are looking at Reference Marker #2
(Do you see the Benchmark just to the left of center in the bottom of this photo?)
There were, surprisingly, good views from the top of this small peak
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1944 was a long time ago!
Joshua Triangulation Station measures the horizontal position rather than the elevation |
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Kent and Chipper are watching Tom and his dogs as they set off to hike another little peak
We needed to head back, and wanted time to explore Snow Spring, so we didn't go with him |
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| Heading back down to our vehicle |
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We had never driven the Snow Spring Road before . . .
along the way we passed through several Joshua tree forests |
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| Snow Spring, a desert oasis out in the middle of nowhere! |
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Just a small seep coming out of the hillside
(If you look closely, you can see a filter attached to a PVC pipeline that feeds the nearby pond) |
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| It is amazing that this small spring could fill such a beautiful pond! |
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| The corral was made from old telephone poles . . . parts included! |
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| This pretty, but poisonous, Sacred Datura was growing on a fence |
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The road crosses Beaver Dam Wash which is normally dry or has a trickle of a stream,
but due to the rain it was flowing nicely! |
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We had a nice view of the Virgin Mountains
before leaving Lytle Ranch Road and joining back up with US 91
(The highest point on the ridgeline is Mt. Bangs which we did in April) |
Did we mention we hadn't been in this area before? It was good for Tom to push our horizons a little and we can definitely seeing us going back and doing a few more hikes. If you're interested in going to the areas we visited on this trip, you can pull up Tom's trip report from Peakbagger.com by clicking
here. This will give you a topo map and GPS tracks for our approximately 2.5 mile r/t hike.
