Las Vegas / Grand Canyon trip New Year’s 2008
Ray and I with one of the Hualapai Indians at the Grand
Canyon Skywalk
After a
busy trip back home for the holidays, I was looking forward to spending a few
days in the desert during the 4 day weekend over New Year’s. Road tripping through the desert has always
been a great way to see interesting parts of the country, as well as providing
time to cleanse my mind. Seeing nature
in its raw form and unspoiled landscapes gives an appreciation beyond our everyday
climate-controlled world, where God’s presence suddenly becomes more real.
It would
be a dramatic change from the hustle and bustle of the holidays – it was a nice
time back home with family, though a very busy one while helping take care of 3
kids while my sister-in-law Lana was on crutches and Mom was dealing with her
neuralgia in her foot and Dad was going through his radiation treatments for
prostate cancer. And I was scheduled for a surgery in about 2 weeks – a lot was
going on in my family.
It sounded
like the weather was supposed to be clearing up - just in time for our
trip. I remember as I was landing in SFO
the night before the trip from the east coast, watching the snow flying past
the window even as we were quite close to SFO.
The weather report was for snow down to 2000 feet during the winter
storm. I was keeping my fingers crossed.
Ray's
close friend Brian had moved to Las Vegas fairly recently. I know he had been looking forward to being
able to visit him and his family sometime.
It was very interesting when Brian took us on a private tour of Varian
and how the medical devices were built and tested. Also knowing that my dad might actually be
using one of those very same machines for his radiation treatments gave me
respect for Brian’s work. I had also heard recently that a new
"skywalk" had been built - a glass walkway that extends about 70 feet
over the Grand Canyon 4000 feet above the Colorado River.
Brian had
been very busy with work and he was originally planning on attending a wedding
over New Years. Plus I anticipated
possibly a busy time with my work. We
had recently moved to a maintenance release system where a new release is
shipped every month, and with New Year’s being at the end of the December
billing month, I might be responsible if there were any issues on our
database. Fortunately, these mountains
of worry and doubt were pushed out of the way at the last minute before the
trip, and after wrapping up several hours of solid meetings Friday morning at
work, we got on our way around 3:00.
Traffic
wasn't too bad on 101 getting down to 152, but we hit the usual jam at the 156
interchange (can't wait until that construction is done and they have a real
exit ramp instead of that stupid stop sign, which has been known to stop
traffic for a couple hours even on normal non-holiday weekends!). Up and over the Pacheco pass and we decided
to stop for a bit at the San Luis reservoir to enjoy some of the sunset
colors. The clouds of the storm that had
just passed were thinning, and some reds and oranges were breaking
through. It was a good way to also test
out my new camera - I had just gotten a new A720 IS camera for Christmas with a
2GB SD card (to replace the old beat-up one - my old A95 had cracks on the
screen, dirt on the CCD sensor, a stuck lens (sometimes random gears would
grind), and it was getting exceedingly difficult to open the flip screen).
It was a
fairly uneventful ride down the I-5 to 46 to 99 to Bakersfield. We found a decent deal for about $40 for a
hotel room for the night - it was nice to break up the drive and then have the
next day to drive the rest of the way to Vegas and enjoy some of the sights
along the way.
Saturday
We got up
fairly early and enjoyed an "extended continental breakfast" in the
lobby - fresh you-make-it-yourself Belgian waffles and pastries and
coffee. I also got to check the road and
weather conditions online - they said the snow was down to about 5000 feet, and
the pass was just under that, so we should be OK. The sun was breaking through some low clouds
and it looked promising to be a nice day - the forecast was a little iffy for
later in the day. But by then we would be
east of the Sierra and in the desert.
We hit the
road, taking the more scenic 178 toward Lake Isabella. The lake was quite low - after what was
probably a record dry year. But it was
quite scenic - with mountain peaks poking through a band of low clouds, all
reflected in the still water of the lake.
It was colder than I expected when we got out - it looked much warmer in
the sun than it really was, and we had just climbed several thousand feet.
Just east
of Lake Isabella started the Joshua trees - quite a strange sight to one
unfamiliar with the signature plant of the Mojave. Ray and I took turns getting pictures between
the branches of the strange "trees", being careful to avoid the
prickly spines of the "leaves" - Ray was so eager to make sure we got
pictures of everything - he didn't want to miss a moment!
There was
just a slight dusting near the 5000 ft pass on highway 178 before we started
heading back down toward 14 near the desert city of Ridgecrest. It was interesting knowing I had grown up for
a couple years in China Lake when my dad was stationed there at the naval
weapons center. I was only about 2 so I
don't remember a thing, but it was weird knowing we were probably only a couple
miles away. Of course the base is
off-limits to civilians, further making me wonder if the old house was still
there and how things have changed in the last almost 30 years.
Instead of
heading straight to Vegas, we took a bit more scenic route, planning on
visiting a couple out-of-the way places like Red Rock canyon and Fossil
Falls. They weren't too far out of the
way for us, since we were in the vicinity, but neither would probably be a
destination in itself. That's the fun
part of road trips - making some of the little side trips and visiting hidden
gems along the way. I had heard about
Fossil Falls from a friend just a couple months back, and coincidentally, we
were going to be passing right nearby.
My friend was interested in geology and so am I and when I looked up the
place online, I became even more intrigued.
Heading
north on 14 and then along 395, we passed the town of Little Lake and Coso, and
there was a small sign indicating a right turn to go to Fossil Falls. We parked in the dirt parking lot - only one
other car was in the large gravel lot.
The trail was obvious and we started exploring. Fossil Falls used to be a roaring waterfall
down a basalt escarpment during the last ice age - it was interesting to try to
imagine the Sierra and the Owens valley full of ice and rushing melt water
flowing down the lava field. The hard and black and angular basalt lava was
sculpted smooth by the gravelly glacial melt water thousands of years ago. In many places, water swirled and drilled
deep potholes in the solid rock. The
potholes kept getting larger and sometimes one pothole would join with a
neighboring pothole forming a tunnel.
Fossil Falls had turned into an immense playground of tunnels and
caverns and slot canyons to explore around - we easily spent a couple hours
there. It was cool knowing the geology
and history of the place, which added an interesting dimension.
I found it
so interesting to find this off-the-beaten-path place and see some more of
nature's raw beauty. A "postcard
spot" can often feel a bit artificial - Fossil Falls was a lot more
intimate of a setting - requiring visitors to spend some time to experience the
place instead of take a few snapshots and move on. I had to take extra care to make sure I didn't
beat up my brand new camera on the unforgiving rocks, but around every corner
seemed to be some other strange sight to explore. It was harder than you'd think to find a
perfect "photo spot" - I felt like the place had to be "experienced"
- it couldn't be captured with a couple of postcard snapshots. It was nice not having to really worry about
a schedule - you'd never anticipate where you'd want to spend your time.
We hit the
road, heading south toward Red Rock Canyon state park just off 14. I had actually passed by the place on my way
back from Death Valley years ago, but it was getting dark and we didn't have
time to make a stop. This time, we'd
have as much time as we wanted! On the
way there, it was mostly open and flat desert, and it wasn't obvious there was
some interesting rock formations coming up - but that was part of the
excitement about going. I made sure on
the map we hadn't missed it, and soon after, seemingly out of nowhere came
these odd-looking rock formations.
Journeying through hundreds of miles of open desert gives you quite an
appreciation for these "jewels" that come unexpectedly.
One of
Ray's hobbies is working with pipe organs, and the flutings in the mudstone
made the cliffs like really tall organ pipes!
We enjoyed lunch at some of the picnic tables by the visitor center -
with some of Ray's signature PB&J sandwiches and bananas. It's nice having your own lunch - much better
than McDonalds and more fun too.
We decided
to check out some of the formations all around us - it was hard to even figure
out where to start! We got some tips
from the visitor center - didn't want to think we knew the best places and
later realize we missed the best part.
The rocks were like layers in a wedding cake - alternating hard, mostly
horizontal reddish layers and thicker but softer lighter layers. I remember as a kid it was fun to tunnel
through the softer layers of a piece of cake and eat the other layers separately
- it looked like at Red Rock Canyon you could also tunnel through the softer
layers and make a pretty cool fort inside!
Across the
highway was another section of interesting rock formations - these "organ
pipes" were even taller. I was
joking with Ray that the E-flat was out of tune and he'd have to climb up and
fix it! Between the pipes were very tall
and fairly deep slot canyons - probably about 3 feet wide and 25 feet deep with
vertical walls at least 100 feet high.
We took turns taking silhouette shots of each other in the opening - our
dark shadow being dwarfed by the immense flutings in the rock. A scattered forest of Joshua trees littered
the hillside, providing an interesting contrast of the green pointed needles in
front of the smooth vertical orange and white layers of the "wedding
cake".
We hit the
road again, heading south on 14 toward 58, when on the way we noticed an interesting
sight toward the mountains - the weak storm that was predicted was passing
through and the clouds were getting bunched up against the Sierra crest,
causing the clouds to form a waterfall pattern as they flowed over the
peaks. We pulled off on a dirt road
heading up toward the mountains - one of our little side trips (which often end
up being highlights of the trip). The
road kept going and going higher toward the mountains and we got a better look
at the snow capped peaks high above. As
we headed uphill, we noticed the signature Joshua trees starting to appear once
again - the strange plants seemed so out of place. The place kind of reminded me of scenes from Antarctica
where the otherwise very barren ice fields are dotted with penguins - one of
the signature species of the Antarctic.
And it makes you kind of wonder - why are they there and how do they
survive? They didn't seem to belong
there, but yet they thrived there. It
was like the divine Creator was just having some fun.
We were
running a bit low on gas and we started looking for where the next town might
be - I knew there would be gas in Barstow, but didn't want to push it. After what seemed to be an eternity we
stumbled upon a no-name town called Boron, one of those hole in the wall places
you'd miss if you blinked. There was a
sign indicating gas, so we existed and turned onto Main Street at the town's
only stoplight. Finally near the end of
town was a small service station / convenience store / brake repair shop / tire
shop that happened to have a couple old rusty gas pumps. A couple young ladies came out and filled ‘er
up for us - full service! They seemed to
be out of a long forgotten era of small towns and friendly service and
hospitality that has been lost with the onset of Costcos, WalMarts, and fast
food. A place where people took their
time and didn't feel the rush of having to go right to the next thing. I felt we were driving through Radiator
Springs from "Cars" - I swear "Mater" the tow truck worked
at that service station!
We were
treated to a beautiful sunset on our way up I-15 toward Las Vegas. I felt like we had to make a brief detour to
stop and look for a good photo opportunity - we found a turnoff toward an
archaeological site where remnants of "early man" were discovered. We
saw a bunch of archaeological sited where they had been digging and there was a
bunch of history in the visitor center.
Unfortunately, they were just closing, so we pretty much ended up just
using the restrooms and getting a couple quick pictures from the parking
lot. The sunset was nice but not real
striking. When I stepped out of the
restroom, I heard an unsettling cracking sound - I wasn’t sure where it came
from but it seemed to be from near the door of the restroom. I looked on the ground and saw my brand new
camera lying on the ground - oh no! I
can't believe I dropped it already! And
we hadn't even gotten to Vegas and the Grand Canyon yet! I picked it up very carefully expecting to
see the screen shattered and pieces on the ground - but fortunately it had
fallen on the edge away from the screen and it appeared nothing was
damaged. I carefully tried to turn it
on, and it made the little jingle indicating it was on. I went to take a picture and noticed it was
mostly black except for a diagonal slit across the frame - hmmm that couldn't
be good. But I noticed on the lens it
was just the shutters of the lens cap that hadn't quite opened all the
way. I flicked some dust off the cap and
it opened the rest of the way - I think the only damage ended up being a bit of
dirt in the lens - which I cleaned with my shirt - whew! The camera was OK.
We got
back on the freeway and noticed the colors of the sunset had changed
dramatically - actually it was quite a bit more intense a little while AFTER
the sun went down - a layer of mid-level clouds were lit up bright orange and
red. Hmmm - time to find another pull-out
to get a picture - the sunset was behind us and it was hard to get a shot while
we were driving... and you couldn't exactly pull off to the shoulder of
I-15. So we took the next exit and found
an empty street and managed some decent shots.
One of Ray's favorite subjects of photos is sunsets and someday he wants
to be able to collect pictures of all different types of sunsets in different
areas. I've always enjoyed sunsets as
well, and it was like nature's way of saying "Amen" at the end of a
day.
We hit the
home stretch on 15 to 215 up to Brian's place in Vegas. After clearing up some ambiguity in the
directions (there are 2 "Hualapai way”’s that don't connect, for example),
I was still on my cell phone looking for his place when I saw someone on a cell
phone out by the front gate wondering where I was. That was Brian! We had made it!
Their
wonderful hospitality started with a pasta dinner for all of us - a nice treat
after a bit of driving. He has a nice
family - and his kids were great! Devin
is 7 and seems to be the perfect age to have fun, and Dylan is 2. It was a full night of games, watching videos
of casinos imploding, and Wii bowling and baseball after dinner!
Sunday
We got up
pretty early for our big trip to the Grand Canyon - we were all really looking
forward to it. It was a beautiful
sunrise with crystal clear desert skies - the omnipresent lights of the strip
seemed to fade as the sunrise grew brighter - the night was drawing to a close.
We were
shortly at the Hoover Dam, and felt we had to pause to appreciate one of the
largest structures that man has ever made.
The dam was built back in 1935, and at the time, it was both the world's
largest electric power producing facility and the world's largest concrete
structure. There was another man-made
wonder also being built in the same area.
The supports of the new Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge (to
be completed in 2010) were partially in place - to support what will be one of the
world's highest steel arch bridges. With
the road 840 feet above the river, the 1080 foot main span will be quite
impressive. Also, of course, the 4 lane
bridge will make traffic much faster, cutting many of the curves in the
existing highway as it follows the contours of the land. Huge sections of the land had been blasted
or filled in to provide a straight path for highway 93 as traffic passes back
and forth from AZ to NV - the entire project is estimated to cost $235 million
and won't be completed until at least 2010 (the collapse of 4 cranes by high
winds in 2006 delayed the project 2 years)
I was
starting to doze along our way but it was hard to sleep with the excitement and
anticipation of the day. Devin brought
his Rubik's cube and kept asking if I could solve it. So of course we took turns playing with it -
he'd mess it up and I'd try to get it back together, so that kept my mind awake
as we drove through the desert. We
finally turned off the main highway and started taking smaller and rougher
roads until the final 10 mile stretch - a somewhat wash boarded gravel
road.
We were
soon enveloped in a great forest of 900 year old Joshua trees amidst enormous
"castles" of sandstone - a very picturesque setting. A light dusting of snow covered the ground in
the shadows of the trees - we were up at about 5000 feet. The desert scenery was quite stark but also
striking - it kind of felt like journeying through the wilderness. I'm often reminded of how there is a joy in
the journey to get somewhere - and how often that is the most memorable
part. Seeing postcard pictures of a
beautiful place almost seems a bit artificial - it takes on a whole new reality
when you drive there yourself and see how special it actually is.
Thanks
Brian for all the driving - it was cool that his company was covering the gas
and everything! Since he often has to
travel for work - sometimes making 3-hr trips to fix various Varian machines,
the company covers all the car expenses.
Unfortunately a bit to our dismay, as it started getting lighter outside,
we saw some odd patterns in the hood of the car - when we looked more
carefully, they appeared to be wide brush strokes of a vandal's spray paint
can. When we figured out the message, it
looked like M and 3 and an upside down J - spelled "JEW" if you faced
the front of the car. Hmmm - apparently
somebody mixed up Brian's white Titan truck with that of a Jew (Brian was
certainly not Jewish...) It was a bit
disturbing to discover there were vandals in the quiet neighborhood where Brian
lived (probably 15 miles from the strip).
It was a stark reminder of how the Jews are still persecuted to this day
(of course that hasn't changed for thousands of years), but to see it right in
front of us... I wonder if we had
discovered the hate crime before we left if we would have even gone to the
Grand Canyon... at least at this point
we wouldn't let it spoil the rest of the day - we'd deal with it later.
We finally
arrived at Grand Canyon West - the terminal where people board helicopters for
scenic flights through the Grand Canyon - you can even take a helicopter 3600
feet down to the Colorado River far below, get on a boat and go on the river
itself for a while, then take another helicopter back up! It sounded tempting, but the $200 price was a
bit steep for us. We got our tickets for
a day at the visitor center. Nothing is
cheap on tribal Indian land - it was about $25 just to enter the land. Then another $25 to go on the skywalk. For $75 total, you got a package tour
including the skywalk, seeing some tribal costumes and dances, a bus tour to a
couple different viewpoints, and a "frontier land" old western cowboy
town, including a wagon ride to one of the viewpoints.
The
skywalk was quite impressive - a glass archway extending some 70 feet out from
the cliffs of the canyon with stunning views of the Colorado River almost 4000
feet below. Although the cliffs aren't
4000 feet straight to the river below, they are probably still about 1000 feet
straight down, quite a daunting view. It
seemed pretty unreal going out there on the glass walkway - you weren't allowed
to take any personal belongings (they said because you might accidentally drop
your camera, but of course they want to sell you pictures that you would
otherwise take yourself). Also you had
to wear special slippers over your shoes so you don't scuff the glass. Even though the glass was probably 5 layers
thick (several inches total), and they said the walkway could support a fully
loaded Boeing 747 jumbo jet, bodily instincts set in and immediately say it's
not safe. A 500 lb fat guy could easily
jump up and down in the middle of the walkway and it would only sway a couple
millimeters.
Two thick
steel support beams held the outside of the walkway and the railings and floor
were glass. It was interesting to see
almost everyone walking over the beams - as if they were afraid of
falling. We then dared each other to see
who would be first to jump in the middle of the walkway. One guy we were talking with had been to New
Zealand and one of the famous attractions in Queenstown is bungee jumping over
the Kawarau River. Then we started
talking about skydiving and how I had gone to Monterey and jumped out of a
plane at 15000 feet. I couldn't help
imagining the feeling of jumping out the door of the plane into the rushing
wind and void of space below when I made the brave 1 foot hop from over the
beam of the skywalk to the middle of the glass panel.
We were
smart to get there fairly early before it got too crowded - there were lines of
people to go out there later in the day.
i also felt we were a bit lucky to have perfect weather - almost no wind
and it was pretty warm - a bit nicer than dealing with the sleet and freezing
rain back on the east coast!
We were
treated to lunch at the Guano point - a narrow neck of land sticking probably
1000 feet from the rim of the canyon.
The point was named after a line was rigged to a bat cave on the far
side of the canyon wall with a cable car.
Guano was mined from that cave and hauled up to Guano point. It was such a beautiful day and I had
developed an itchy trigger finger on my camera.
I had both my brand new point and shoot as well as my digital SLR camera
- I don't take the SLR that often because of its size and annoyance of having
to carry everything, but I figured for the Grand Canyon it was worth it.
I had
reached the pinnacle of Guano Point - offering a perfect 360 degree panoramic
view when I realized I hadn't actually even used my good SLR camera yet - I was
so used to the point and shoot. The lens
was still sticking a bit from the near catastrophe the night before, but it
wasn't as bad. But it suddenly dawned on
me that perhaps a bigger camera catastrophe was about to happen - when we had
lunch at the picnic area earlier, we had set the SLR camera bag down and left
it. I asked Ray if he had my camera, and
Ray asked Brian and Devin, and Brian asked me who had it... oh no!
We must have left it at the picnic area - I'm sure by now somebody would
have picked it up - it was probably lost!
Brian ran back to the picnic area - probably 1/4 mile or so, and by the
time I had come to grips with the loss of my good camera, I saw Brian running
back with it! Whew! It was still where we had left it!
I had to
go back up to the point and re-take a bunch of pictures with the good camera -
since I had different filters and a telephoto lens - it would be a shame to go
all the way to the Grand Canyon and not even use it! The polarizer filter made the colors and
depth stand out so well - I'm really glad we had it!
We decided
to also visit an old western mockup town - it was like a cowboy town from
Disneyland complete with mock gunfights, cowboys showing their lassoing skills,
and an old saloon where we took turns "holding up" the bartender
using Ray's hat like a ski mask. Then I
was "most wanted" for 25 cents!
We were treated to a wagon ride out toward Quarter master point - a
peaceful way to wrap up the day.
It was
about 4:00 and we were back on the road again - through the ancient Joshua tree
forest and the "castles" back to the highway. It was getting to be near sunset when we
pulled out on a road near the Lake Mead scenic area to try to get a good shot
of the sunset. The sky didn't have many
clouds - just a few contrails that lit up with vivid orange and red hues
against a pale blue background. I
decided to hike up one of the buttes for a better view (plus it looked like a
lot of fun!). It was quite a lonely and
stark beauty - isolated buttes with volcanic cap rocks dotted the
landscape. It was a steep hike up the
side of the butte and about a 20 foot rock climb up the columnar basalt to the
top - some previous hikers had left their marks with rock cairns. It was a bit tougher hike than I anticipated
- even though I was only out there for about 10-15 minutes, I was a bit winded
when I got back to the car (some of my first real exercise after too many
holiday cookies and treats!)
Back on
the road, me and Devin were playing with a Rubik's cube to pass the time - I
had learned how to solve it years ago, but the memory had become a bit dusty
after so many years. Devin kept messing
it up, first a little bit ("level 1"), then I'd solve it, then he'd
mess it up a little more ("level 2"), then I'd solve it again, and so
on. He swore I could never solve level
100, but actually, it doesn't matter how much more he'd mess it up, the
algorithm to solve it was actually the same!
(but of course I pretended it wasn't)!
I was just
nodding off to sleep when Brian hit the brakes and suddenly we were stuck in a
dead-stop traffic jam! Hmmm - out in the
middle of nowhere - what could it be? It
wasn't even moving either... People were
actually getting out of their cars to have a better look - except there was
nothing to see except endless line of tail lights. Devin and I got out to have a look (but my
main purpose was to go to the bushes to use the bathroom!) But when I hiked back up to the hill toward
the car, the traffic was moving! And we
saw Brian drive by - we waved and yelled Wait!
But he kept on moving - I wonder if he even saw us... fortunately he was able to pull out a ways up
on the shoulder and we ran up and got back in!
The trip
from Vegas to Grand Canyon west is normally 2.5 hours driving time, but it
ended up being 3.5 hours each way. (2.5
hours with no traffic getting there, but we lost an hour due to the time
change), and 2.5 hours plus 2 hours stuck in traffic minus an hour time change
getting back)!
Fortunately,
Brian's wife held dinner for us and we wolfed down a pasta dinner, and we
resumed our video games and Wii and watching comedy. Devin's little brother was playing with his
"Cars" toys - we actually experienced many themes from Cars already
on the trip - how so many interesting things are just a bit off the main
highway, if you're willing to take a short detour to see something. I felt a bit ambivalent about the huge new
bridge over the Colorado river by the Hoover dam - seeing how the land had to
be altered so much to accommodate the straighter path and probably many people
would then miss the experience of winding through the scenic canyons, but the
traffic would flow so much better!). And
of course another theme from "Cars" was filling up gas in that
no-name town the day before!
Monday
Brian was
on-call for work today since it was a business day. I took the day off but also was sort of
on-call, since it was getting up to our billing close at Tellme. Unfortunately that meant he couldn't join us
- so we'd have to fill him in later. He
had already been to Red Rock Canyon (where we had planned to go), so he didn't
feel too bad.
It was fun
browsing the maps (thanks Ray for getting the great AAA maps) - we decided to
visit Red Rock canyon (the NV one, we had already been to the CA one!), and get
up to Mt Charleston and maybe check out some other side places nearby when we
ran across them. It is interesting that
the bustling strip of Las Vegas is only about 20 miles away from some very
interesting rock formations and outstanding textbook examples of geology.
We headed
back south and west over to the Red Rock canyon state park - it was like a
wonderland of rock formations - red and white banded sandstone polished by the
weather into all different interesting shapes.
I managed to get Ray to go at least part way up - he's always up for a
little "adventure" like the time we went hiking in the Mokelumne
wilderness and he managed to go off-trail around the backside of Fourth of July
peak. During the adventure, it sometimes
seemed like "why are we doing this" to "I don't think I can do
this", but afterward we felt like "wow - I can't believe I did that -
and I really liked it!"
Red rock Canyon
was a place that needed to be experienced - sort of like Fossil Falls. You couldn't really capture the essence of
the experience in photographs. It was a
very three-dimensional environment - requiring scrambles up steep slabs of
slickrock, chimneying through cracks and carefully sliding down smooth and
polished rock to discover the hidden surprises - a cave of banded rock with the
sunlight casting a warm glow inside, a frozen-over vernal pool at the top of a
rock pile, and a half-frozen sparkling stream flowing across an interesting
pattern of cross-bedded bands of red and white.
We sit for a few minutes watching some rock climbers clinging to an
overhanging ledge high above us, as if posing for the cover of Outdoor
magazine. We watched a couple horses
wandering by a spring-fed stream.
We stopped
at several of the viewpoints along the loop road, wishing we had more time for
each one. At first I thought we could
probably see most of the sights in an hour or two, but after 3 hours, we had
only visited the first 2 viewpoints. A
new surprise always awaited us - it was tricky to "budget the time" -
which areas were worth spending more time at?
At least, knowing the place is just outside Vegas, we could always come
back!
One of my
favorites was the Calico rocks - a jumble of polished sandstone complete with
narrow slot canyons, arches, smooth banded sandstone, and a lake at the bottom
of the canyon reflecting the smooth walls as like a mirror. The more we explored, the deeper we wanted to
go. The clock was always ticking and the
winter days were short - we just wished we could put "time in a
bottle" and hold the moment forever.
I would
have to come back for the Icebox canyon - one of the other stops on the loop
road - the sign said it was a 5 mile roundtrip hike, but was supposedly one of
the most interesting spots. The canyon
narrows down and you have to negotiate a series of plunge pools from the
stream. The canyon traps the cooler air,
making it a great destination in the summer when it is over a 100 degrees
outside. If we took the time, we would
probably have to miss Mt Charleston, but since Ray hasn't been to the snow in
15 years, I figured we'd do it another time.
Besides, the stream would probably be mostly frozen and negotiating the
icy path may be a bit dicey.
We headed
back into town to fill up - and also to see if Brian might be free from his
on-call duty. But just as I was picking
up my phone to call Brian, it started ringing... I dreaded seeing one of my coworkers names on
the caller ID - since I knew it was around the billing close and we had just
upgraded a major component of our system, there was a significant chance of a
problem. Yep - the caller ID showed
work... crap! I hope it wasn't too
bad. They reported there was missing
data on 2 days and we'd have to correct the problem manually. Hmmm - since I didn't have my laptop, it
would be hard (I had actually deliberately left it home since I was "on
vacation" and I made that clear before I left). But fortunately after about 15 minutes at the
gas station, I was able to probe with the right questions and they were able to
kick off some scripts to fix the data.
Good I was off the hook for a while :-)
We headed
back up on 95 north and then west toward Mt Charleston. It is interesting that there are snow covered
mountains almost 12000 feet high just 30 minutes outside the city. Of course it was a very popular area, and
there is even a very popular (though quite small by Sierra standards) ski
resort on the north side of the mountain.
Climbing up the mountain, the desert shrubs gave way to yuccas and
Joshua trees, and up higher, they changed to junipers and eventually a pine
forest. The pine trees were so lovely
after we've been in the desert for even just a couple days.
The road
headed up to just over 8000 feet and there was snow everywhere! Only about a foot deep, but it was a
beautiful change of scenery from the dry and dusty desert. There were a few hiking trails nearby and we
decided to walk a bit through the winter wonderland. The snow was packed pretty well so snowshoes
weren't really necessary. We soon
discovered near the beginning of the trail there was a line of kids with their
sleds - anywhere from classic wooden toboggans to plastic runner sleds to
garbage can lids to pieces of cardboard, whatever you could slide down the hill
on. Unfortunately we wished we had been
wearing crampons - where so many kids had sledded caused the snow to get so
packed down it was like ice. Both Ray
and I had to be quite careful and we both took a couple tumbles!
The sign
said there was a waterfall just 1/4 mile to the right - I thought it would be a
worthwhile sight to see how much ice there would be. I got on the trail and soon reached the
falls. Ray was right behind me at one
point, but a little later, I turned and he wasn't there. I figured we would just meet at the falls
since it was very close. The trail went
into a rather enchanting canyon as it narrowed and winded a bit and soon ended
in about a 10 foot frozen pile of logs, followed by probably a 50 foot
cliff. And along the cliff was an
elegant frozen waterfall - seemingly oblivious to the passing of time.
An ice
climber was there - solo - to check out the place and the quality of the
ice. I don't think I'd ever try ice
climbing (and especially not solo - I really enjoy seeing pictures and watching
others do it though), but we talked for a bit while I waited for Ray to show
up. In the end he ended up just having a
look and not attempting a climb since the ice was a little thin. He had his crampons, which instead for
climbing, were definitely useful for negotiating the sledding runs that crossed
the hiking trail! Ray ended up going
just a little way on the trail, stopping to watch the sledders and kids playing
in the snow - even Ray got to feel like a kid again - especially after not
having seen snow in so many years!
Back near
the trailhead again, my phone rang again - oh no! There was another problem at work with one of
our contracts... but this one could wait
until I got back so I could deal with it later.
I felt a little ambivalent about going on a trip during a fairly
critical billing close - I really wanted to go and I gave my manager plenty of
lead time, but I knew there was always a chance of problems that we wouldn't
find out until the last minute. At least
since many other people were away on holidays, people were a bit more lenient.
I took Ray
to the ski resort at Mt Charleston - he was quite fascinated seeing the skiers
and snowboarders coming down the hill.
For a fairly small place, it was pretty expensive - over $50 for 2 lifts
for a day! But it made a very nice
retreat only 30 minutes from downtown Las Vegas. We decided to have lunch at one of the picnic
areas by a campground up on the mountain.
Rows of beautiful but probably quite expensive cabins littered the
snow-covered mountainside, nestled among the pine trees. It was a scenic picnic area and we were being
entertained by watching the flatlanders play with their sleds, and one lady got
out of control on the run and made it all the way down to the gate at the
bottom and she had to quickly duck under the metal bar of the gate - whew!
One thing
both me and Ray were looking forward to on this trip was being treated to a
Thanksgiving-like turkey dinner for New Years Eve. A great way to cap off a wonderful day. It had been a wonderful trip so far and I
wished we could spend a whole week! We passed a bright pink Jeep on the way out
- it said it was from "Pink Jeep Tours" - sounds like an interesting
way to see the backcountry in the desert!
They didn't even need to advertise - you just see the bright paint job
and you become intrigued immediately!
Distances
in the desert proved to be quite deceiving - as we started heading back down
the mountain from about 8600 feet to about 2000 feet, it looked like we were
only going a couple miles. In reality,
it was about 20 miles. I could tell from
the way my ears were popping on the way down and how the snow started
thinning. A few patches still clung to
the shadows of the Joshua trees at around 6000 feet, and it was mostly gone by
5000 feet. By about 3000 feet the Joshua
trees were mostly gone and ahead was a huge playa - a dry lake bed. It was below freezing where we had lunch at
the picnic area (my water started to freeze along the edges of the bottle) but
was probably almost 70 degrees by the time we got back to highway 95!
Brian's
wife had the turkey almost done and the fixing’s were about ready by the time
we got back to their place around 5:00.
Turns out Brian's phone never rang all day, but with Murphy's law, it
would have been ringing all day if he decided to head out with us (last time,
he had to make a 3 hr trip to Utah to fix a Varian medical machine and the 3
hrs back home all in the same day...
there were patients like my dad who were depending on these machines for
radiation treatments). At least Brian
got to deal with the police to file a report about the graffiti on the car.
The 6 of
us were treated to a wonderful dinner - me, Ray, Brian and his wife and 2 kids,
and their dog got to help clean the dishes!
The food was delicious and the homey atmosphere made it even
better. After dinner we pulled out some
board games (Brian has tons of them), and I got the guitar out (after taking it
all this way, we should at least play a little!). I played the guitar, Ray played Devin's toy
piano (which was actually in tune), and we got to sing a few impromptu praise
songs!
We thought
of hitting the strip for New Years - we were only 15 minutes away (without
traffic) - but after the hearty dinner, we decided just to stay home and watch
it on TV (and maybe hear some fireworks popping outside at the same time). So we enjoyed some Wii baseball and tennis
and some comedy for a couple hours until about 11:45, when we followed the
countdown. It was actually quite amusing
- the news station missed the actual last 10 seconds - they had cut to another
story about 30 seconds before the new year, and maybe their watches were off a
little, since when they cut back to see the "ball drop", it has
already happened - they missed it! Oh
well - I was pretty tired anyway and struggling just to stay up until 12:01.
Tuesday
We figured
it'd be about a 9 hour drive back home, so if we left by 9 and spent 3 hours
stopping and seeing places along the way, we'd be home by about 9:00. Not too bad.
We got to enjoy a fairly leisurely breakfast - thanks Brian for making
the bagels, scrambled eggs and coffee. I
pulled out the map to look for some nearby things on the way. We were talking about roller coasters the
night before, but after being entertained by a couple YouTube videos of people
being stranded on broken roller coasters, we decided to forgo the idea of
hitting the big roller coaster at the casino in Primm (which we passed on the
way in).
A thought
occurred to me, though - Since I was in the area last year on our Pisgah
camping trip, I found out about an "interesting slot canyon" by Cave
Mountain which they said was just off I-15.
Since we'd be on that freeway on the way back, I decided to have a
check. I asked to borrow Brian's laptop,
and I quickly found a link about the slot canyon and found it to be called
Afton slot canyon. I remembered passing
an Afton road on the way up to Vegas and I figured that might be it. Turned out it was, and the slot canyon was
just 10 minutes off the main freeway! I
was intrigued by the description of the canyon being a "pitch dark slot"
- hmmm - it might be worth a look.
The NV
border was quite obvious as we trekked across the desert on I-15 toward
Primm. Primm with its glittering casinos
and roller coaster (which I was intrigued by, but we'd have to hit some other
day) we visible from at least 10 miles away!
Traffic was heavy but moving OK.
But I was soon dismayed to see an "amber alert" sign saying
"Heavy traffic going to CA, expect long delays". Hmmm - I wondered how bad it would be... was
there a bad accident? Was it just heavy
holiday traffic? And it said "long
delays", emphasizing "long"...
We didn't
hit really any traffic until Afton road, where we followed the directions from
the printout I had made earlier and they soon took us off the main freeway to a
side street which soon turned into gravel.
The directions indicated the distance was fairly short - I took the road
pretty carefully - I really didn't want anything to happen to get us stranded
while we're still 7 hours from home! The
road stayed pretty good gravel until the directions indicated to cross Afton
creek. I was looking for the bridge
where we cross the creek, but it quickly occurred to me we were going to be
driving through the creek - no bridge! I
couldn't tell the depth of the water but I could see a couple rocks protruding
through the muddy water. I figured we
could just take it really slow and if it got too deep, we could still back up
and abort the idea. Fortunately it
didn't get too deep, though a couple loud thunks startled me a bit.
The gravel
started to get pretty thick, and a minimum speed was required to make sure I
didn't get stuck - o/w we would end up just going deeper into the gravel
instead of forward! The directions said
just to parallel the train tracks and the obvious opening of the canyon would
be on the left - within a few minutes, we saw where the tracks went over a
short bridge, and there we were - Afton canyon!
We grabbed
our flashlights and camera and started headed up the canyon. Just as we started, a freight train was making
its way following the base of the 100 foot cliffs in front of the canyon - what
a shot, of the roaring train in front of the narrow entrance of the mysterious
canyon. The train probably had at least
100 cars, mostly double-stacked, and its four engines were working at full
steam pulling the enormous train on its cross-country journey.
Making our
way up the canyon, the walls quickly closed in and the light started to
dim. The flat sandy bottom was easy
walking on this dry afternoon, but you hear stories about flash floods that rip
through the canyon that could suddenly fill the canyon with 50 feet of muddy
rushing water. This might only happen
once a year but over the centuries, the canyon has become quite deep, the
sinuous passages blocking almost all the ambient sunlight from above.
As the
walls pinched to within a couple feet of each other, the deepening darkness
necessitated us turning on our flashlights to proceed. The floor started getting a bit rocky and
there were a few "dryfalls" to negotiate. The canyon would suddenly seem to end in
about a 5-10 foot wall, but the wall could be easily climbed by using the
embedded rocks like a ladder. It was
actually quite fun, and of course the canyon would keep drawing you in deeper
as your curiosity continued to be piqued.
Every so often it was fun to look directly up and you could occasionally
see some light coming in, filtered through the passages at the top of the
canyon. Around one of the corners, the
passage opened up a few feet, and you could even see a peek of sunlight from
the sky far above penetrating the depths of the canyon. We felt like explorers probing the depths on
a foreign planet never seen before by the eyes of man (although the path was
full of footprints and an occasional candy wrapper littered the trail). There was nobody else there when we were
there (except for the people on the train that just roared by). I had a slight twinge of worry that if any part
of the engine got wet with the water crossing earlier, I would have trouble
getting the car started when we got back, but the enchantment of the canyon
kept my mind distracted.
Deeper in
the canyon, the walls continued to become more rugged and the dryfalls a bit
higher. We finally came to a
"room" where you could look up at the ethereal glow of the light
above - it was like being in a secret chamber of a thousand-year-old cathedral
with the light of heaven penetrating.
Just past the room was the highest dryfalls so far - about 20 feet. The description said it could be easily
climbed, but a handline should be available.
I didn't see the handline, so I thought maybe it was further in. Ray decided to stay at the bottom, holding
his light to help light my path since it was hard to climb holding the light
(thanks Ray!) At the top of the falls
was a rope dangling from a higher dryfalls and another 20-30 foot length coiled
at the bottom. The description
recommended bringing your own rope since the existing rope was of
"questionable quality" and I didn't feel like being the first to find
out it was frayed at the top...
I decided
not to go further (the directions indicated the falls was the end of the canyon
and you'd emerge at the surface when you go up, plus Ray didn't go up), so I
uncoiled the rope and instead used it to help me climb down (which is always
harder than going up anyway, plus I saw the full length of the lower rope so I
knew it was OK).
It was a
great experience - finding a truly magnificent place, hearing about it from a
local the previous year, that we could find it, and that both of us could
really enjoy it! We got to read a couple
psalms and pray a bit - Ray always enjoys having times of prayer on
"mountaintop experiences" (even though this wasn't officially a
mountaintop, it felt like one!)
The car
started no problem - whew! And we made our way back, stopping for lunch at the
picnic area by the campground. Ray
prepared his signature peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and we had a nice
lunch (tasted better than McDonalds, was cheaper, and more fun anyway!). It was a little easier going through the water
on the way back, since I made it through earlier (and I don't think it rained
during the last couple hours). I
wondered later how often the crossing was possible, since it had been such a
dry year, the creek must have been quite low, and yet I still felt it was
barely passable in my car.
Back on
I-15, we continued heading back home, and the thought from before occurred to
me "expect long delays". Hmmm
- I hope it didn't get worse... but then
again, maybe the accident got cleared up while we were in the canyon and
traffic would be OK again. Luckily it
turned out to be the latter, and we didn't really hit any traffic. It turned out we had a little more time after
all, so we decided to make a short detour at the Calico ghost town. I had been there on the trip last year - it
is quite well done, the buildings restored, and the experience of gunfights in
the streets, hard drinks at the saloon, and long days in the mines were
recreated.
We got to
within 2 miles of Calico when the traffic halted to a dead-stop! Shoot - maybe this was the "heavy
traffic"? But this was at least 150
miles after the warning earlier. After
about a 30 minute delay, it was obvious what was causing it - agricultural
inspection station! But we were quite a
ways in to CA now - I didn't quite understand why they had the station where
they did... I know there's one on the
way back from Tahoe a ways into CA as well.
The station was closed for the holiday, but traffic still pinched to go
through.
Ray seemed
to enjoy the ghost town as we toured the 100 year old buildings, the
"bottle house", the fire station, complete with horse-driven carts
and pumps to spray the water, the blacksmith shop, the dentist/barbershop (the
barber was also the dentist, and the drill was operated with a foot treadle
like a Singer sewing machine). We peeked
our ways through some of the mine shafts - showing workers sweating through
long hours in the dusty "glory hole", where silver was discovered,
which would amount to millions of dollars today.
We caught
our final sunset of the trip as we were crossing through Barstow - it was a
grand finale, as the sky started to light up from horizon to horizon, as fiery
tongues of red spread from upper clouds decks to lower ones in ever shifting
orange and red hues. It looked like fire
coming from heaven as if there was someone giving us a final "Amen"
to our trip.
We made
pretty much a bee-line back from there - heading back over the Tehachapi on 58,
through Bakersfield, fast-food dinner in Wasco on 46 as we cut back over to 5,
then crossing to the 101 on 152, and back home.
We got home just before midnight - it was a wonderful 4 days in the
desert. I knew I had some problems to
deal with at work the next day, but I would be refreshed with a new state of
mind for a new year.