My Journey

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

The entire entrance to the canyon, and then even into the canyon, the stone walls are covered in petroglyphs.....







Despite the protests from both of the dogs, I continued to document as much as I possibly could.....









Eventually I gave in to the pulls & tugs of the dog team that's become stronger than me over these past several years so we hiked west deeper into the canyon.....

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

Grapevine Canyon is truly a remarkable place to experience.....





It's almost as if you've left the real world and wandered into a new reality.....





Unfortunately for me, canyons & climbing over large boulders are without a doubt my biggest challenge these days.....I left with so much of Grapevine Canyon unseen. When we returned to the Jeep there was a large crowd gathered in the parking lot.....I patiently waited to see what I could see.....



A group of inner city kids was here to meet a group of kids from the local Native American tribe.....





The Native American girls wore the same clothes that have been worn by their ancestors for centuries (?).....it was super cool.....



The boys shook (played) gourds filled with beans as they sang traditional songs while the girls danced their traditional dances.....much like Grapevine Canyon, this was all surreal.....I could only think how grateful I was to have been patient, not to have interrupted, not to have hurried down the highway.....truly a blessed day in my travels.....

 

[ITTOG]

View attachment 760476

Anyone besides me see the bird in this pic?

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

We also hiked Sacatone Canyon.....



This one was not near so spectacular yet they're all spectacular.....





Again the canyons & the massive boulders were a bit much for me so we returned to the Jeep wondering what we'd missed.....





These boulders & stone walls that we encountered along the way were absolutely massive.....I loved them so much.....





The nights here were so quiet.....I don't recall having seen one other camper during our entire stay.....





After a day of exploring.....well, each night we slept like logs.....

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

Some days we wandered aimlessly up into the mountains.....







Places without names.....







This truly is my favorite part of exploring.....there's a mystery everywhere you look as you seek to be one in nature.....







And sometimes we cleaned up after man where there are no mysteries.....

 

[Riversdad]

Thanks for taking the time to take us along on your travels. Really enjoying the places you go and adding many to my to do list. Do any of these plaques give any information on what some of the symbols in the petroglyphs mean?

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

Riversdad.....there was only the one informative sign posted there and I have no idea (Google it maybe ?).....and sure thing, my pleasure.....



The time finally came when we needed to resupply so we reversed course, drove north, and eventually ended up returning to Lake Mead and stayed camped there for maybe another a week or so....





This time I came here with thoughts to explore the new lands that had been exposed after finally realizing that the dropping water levels could actually be an opportunity to see what this place looked like prior to the Colorado River being damned (or somewhat close to it anyhow).....





Mostly in the past I had focused on the drop in elevation of the lake but in addition to that, tons of acres of land had now been exposed.....



.....as well as these sunken boats.....









It's a bit surreal to be hiking by channel markers such as this when the actual lake is hundreds of feet below.....

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

Now I was a bit curious just how far the shoreline had actually receded so I hiked from the point where I would typically access the water, and from there I hiked east until I connected with the new shoreline.....







I did this on two separate days using different routes each time.....it's a bit shocking (to me anyhow) as I came up with approximately three miles.....









Just one year ago when I was here last.....all of this was underwater.....





.....and new islands had risen from below.....

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

I was happy that I had returned to Lake Mead one more time.....last year I left here saying that I'd never come back.....then spent one night here nearly a month ago and I seem to have confirmed those same feelings.....







But now I think that there's no reason to make such commitments.....like my own life, Lake Mead too is always changing.....





Our week here was actually good.....and like the lake.....the weather here too was constantly changing.....





Several well needed storms passed by.....



.....and then we drove south again.....

 

[vintageracer]

I was at Lake Mead or should I say what's left of it in November 2022.

In 1992 my wife and I did the 4 day Colorado river trip from Moab to Lake Powell. Absolutely wonderful trip.

In 2017, 25 years later, we did the same trip with our 2 girls to show them the wonder of Utah and Colorado river. Again a wonderful trip other than the water level that was almost 25 feet BELOW what it was in 1992. Places of interest you could take a house boat right up to in 1992 were now a one mile HIKE up a trail.

The water level is again now lower in Jan of 2023.

Maybe the storms hitting the West coast will hit the Colorado basin just as hard and help to begin to refill both Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

 

[tgil]

The experience with the kids would've been such a great on to witness.
I follow Peter Santenello on youtube. He recently finished up a series visiting different reservations and talking with different generations at some.
I thought about your travels, while watching several. Those would be amazing places to explore, but rarely allowed according to different tribal rules.
Safe travels! Give TnT a scratch behind their ears for me.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

vintageracer.....just yesterday I read an article about rising water levels in Lake Mead and the article stated that it's nearly impossible for rain & snow melt to remedy the situation. The article stated that the river is being pumped dry and that there has to be a reduction in use to make any long term difference.....it is doomed I think.....

tgil.....the dancing & singing was super cool. Those kids were so proud of their heritage. They told me that their people were created in Grapevine Canyon and that this is entire area is sacred to their tribe.....fascinating stuff right there.....and will do.....



We retraced our travels from a few weeks prior.....we drove south along Highway 95 once again.....the plan now was to attempt to climb Ireteba Peak (5,060').....the mountain peak in the El Dorado Mountains which we were unable to climb due to lack of daylight also several weeks prior.....but this time we planned to use a completely different route to reach the summit.....



We had camped in the same spot in the desert as before, then headed out the very next morning.....it was one of those cool, crisp mornings with light winds & beautiful blue skies.....a perfect day to be climbing in the mountains.....



We dropped the Jeep off somewhere in the desert, hiked up various washes where the the vegetation was limited.....



Along the way I found my third (2 last winter) Desert Tortoise shell in a wash.....I thought that phenomenal to have found so many in my travels as the Desert Tortoise is critically endangered.....but then maybe not so much when one wanders aimlessly as we often do.....



Eventually we left the washes behind and began climbing the lower slopes of the El Dorado Mountains.....



On the ridgeline we got our first glimpses of the Colorado River & Lake Mohave.....



Snow capped peaks to the north.....



We had to navigate our way around quite a few rock walls as we climbed higher.....



I started taking panorama shots well before reaching the summit.....lighting seemed to be particularly good on this day (well, better than last attempt for sure).....

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

We stopped often during our hike as we neared the summit.....



.....cause the views truly were incredible.....



We finally stood on the summit (notice the bronze survey marker) that had previously eluded us.....



Tanner posed cause he's a poser.....





Oddly my favorite spot to chill on this mountain was not at the summit.....it was this grassy, flatish spot that we had crossed earlier as we climbed the western slope.....



So we downclimbed and returned to that special little spot on the mountain.....





I lied down in the soft, tall grasses that somehow seemed to personify the meaninglessness of life as it waved in the morning winds.....just me and my two best friends chilling on the side of a mountain.....something so simple yet so special.....



It was a fine day climbing in the El Dorado Mountains.....

 

[AlwaysRoaming]

Thank you Jerry.

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

jbynum.....?.....



We continued driving south on Highway 95 .....simply stopping to explore those places with no names in the El Dorado Mountains.....



Often we hiked the random back roads.....





And often we hiked up the random ravines & washes where we'd find those simple things that captured our attention.....







One day we stumbled onto this interesting abandoned homestead.....





I'll bet that back in the day this place was a showpiece.....I even loved it as it was.....