Went for a walk Sunday along the Salt River.  I parked at Phon D Sutton Campground and intended to meander to the west and find what's left of the old Arizona Dam.  Arizona Dam was replaced decades ago by Granite Reef Dam further downstream.  The Salt River gets shallow for a while to the west and the campground is near an old river ford.

The campground is located at the confluence of the Verde River with the Salt River and at this time of year,  the upstream dams are setup to supply most of the downstream water through the Verde system while the Salt River system recharges.

The Verde is coming into the Salt from straight ahead.  The Salt is to the right.

I headed east from the campground in the general direction of a posted trail on the upper river terrace. You had to walk off the trail to see the river.

From west of campground looking northeast

from campground trail looking west

It got harder and harder to get to river as I went west.  In order to get to where you could see along the river required crossing an old river channel and dropping down through dense thickets of mesquite and Salt Cedars along the rivers edge.  That wasn't always easy.  It was especially spooky for me since I don't like enclosed spaces anyway.

spooky trail leading to the old river channel

Every so often I'd find a narrow animal trail that meandered down to the river.  The trails were made by the several horses and occasional cattle that roam the area.   Oddly, several seemed to be dead ends (also spooky).

One of the trails took me through the brush and down to the old river channel.  It was easy walking as long as you stuck to the sandy edges.

Old river channel.  The river is now to the right. Not sure what those cones are.

I didn't make it all the way to the dam,  the bushwacking took longer than I expected.  After trudging through the brush one last time I got to some rocks that let me see both directions along the river.  No Arizona Dam.  Turned out that I was still a fairly long way from the dam site.  At home, the boss had ordered me not to dawdle around too long because we had to go to a Christmas part later in the afternoon.

Rocks upstream of dam site

The rocks were a conglomerate similar to that of Red Mtn

So, I turned around and started bushwacking back.  (not nearly as much fun as coming in)

Finding a way (without crawling on my belly) from the old channel to the upper terrace turned out to be a bit of a challenge.  At one point along the way,  I suddenly found myself horizontal instead of vertical.  Turned out I missed a buried section of abandoned barbed wire fencing.

Lucky it was sandy

(We've been watching "Lost" on Netflix and I regularly comment on the foolishness of the folks that trigger the Mad Frenchwoman's traps by tripping over a wire across the trail.  "Come on, I'd have seen that".  Well maybe not.)

After trying several false trails from the old channel to the upper terrace, I decided to throw in my destiny with that of a large cow (judging from her less than dainty hoof size).  She seemed resolute where the several horse trails were fickle.

Onward to better grazing

Once back on the upper terrace she left a calling card.

The recent rains have brought lots of bright green grass.  The runoff from the rain washes sticks and other debris towards the river and the grass get's its best start near the debris.  It makes the grass look like its rippling downstream.  Very artsy.

I headed back more like a dog than a cow.  I zigzagged back and forth to the campground sniffing at interesting looking trees and old abandoned roads.

Abandoned east-west road with Burr Sage and Creosote Bush

Old Mesquite Tree (or Ironwood, don't remember now)

Finally made it back to the river down below the campground.  The above sure seems like an old river ford but its downstream of where the map shows it.  I've been using an old 1906 top map of the area.  It has some other interesting stuff I want to look for.  But they'll have to wait for another day.

Adios

"Red sky in morning, sailor take warning"?  Well it was certainly red this morning.  Hard to tell from the photo though.  The phone's camera seems to have taken most of the red out and left yellow.  Not sure the sailor thing is really relevant anyway here in the Sonoran desert.

No travel this week.  I spent the week sorting through data from last weeks travel.  This week I go to class.  Tuesday through Thursday, I'll be attending a substation automation class.  Hopefully, I can stay relevant.

Spent a relaxing Sunday morning at Saguaro Lake.  The crowds have thinned out some but the marina ramp was busy with folks removing their boats for the "winter".  It was quiet on the lake though.  I found a nice deep cove and just drifted for an hour or so casting out bait and catching weeds (actually Myriophyllum spicatum or "milfoil").  I have a long history with milfoil.  A professor at Ohio University had me collecting it and measuring the distance between leaf nodes in a control and experimental group.  We parted ways over a disagreement on how many hoops I should jump through for credit in an independent study class.  My count was much lower than his.

Anyway, the lake was nice and quiet and I wasn't bothered with removing any pesky fish from my bait.  I wish the guys at the marina would stop asking me if I caught anything though.  I can see how easily a fisherman could become a liar.

I tried to take a picture of an eagle with my phone but it was pretty far away.  Maybe I'll buy another camera someday.  I'm still grumpy about drowning the last one while fishing in the ocean this spring.

See the tiny white speck on top of the first peak in the center of the photo?  I didn't think so.

Here's a pretty grainy zoomed version.  (I really need to consider buying a camera)

Adios

It's nice to be home again but New Mexico was, as always, nice to visit.  Once out of Albuquerque, I like the feeling of being in an older less urban culture.  My co-worker hadn't been to Santa Fe so I used it as an excuse to eat lunch at the old town plaza.

Taos surprised me.  I expected a glitzy resort area but found more of an artist colony. (Sorry, but I didn't take any pics) We stayed three nights in Taos while working at mine up in the mountains near Questa, NM.  The mine was at an altitude near 8,000'. We spent the day climbing up and down stairs in the Mill to inspect electrical equipment.  I hope I don't need to do that again for a while.

It snowed on our last day.  It wasn't cold enough to be an issue on the roads but it was a sloppy mess otherwise.

Back here at home, it's still in the 80's during the day but cool at night.

Yesterday, I cleaned up the gardens, fixed a broken irrigation line, planted a couple of peppers and spread some poppy seeds.  Today....well today I haven't done much of anything but sit around and read.

Adios

Wow.  First entry since July.  As with that day,  I was at the lake this morning.  Unlike that day, I didn't get soaked in a rain storm.  The weather was beautiful and I had a nice peaceful ride.  Oh there were a few big boats thrashing around pulling skiers and there were some parties going on at the beaches but all in all things are quieting down.  Best of all, it's cool in the morning and less than 100 in the afternoon.

We've been gone for a couple of weekends so things got a bit out of hand at home.  The grass in the backyard was a foot deep and weeds were taking over the garden.  Actually, the veggie garden was burned out this summer and I need to get it started again.

All Summer I've had to periodically walk outside and shoo off a local woodpecker.  While we were gone he managed to bang a 2" hole in the side of the house.  I'm not sure how to end this behavior.  One article recommended a large convex mirror attached to the wall.  It evidently makes the woodpecker think he's being attacked by a larger bird as he flies toward it.  It might be fun to try if I can find a medium sized convex mirror.  For now, I'll just confuse him with a large gecko covering up his hole.

Our shelf at the pool collapsed.  I need to either fix or replace it.  I haven't decided which yet.  It looks hopeless but I liked it so much that I'm having difficulty letting it go.  It evidently has no such problem.

Another irrigation valve bit the dust while we were gone.  I walked out in the yard after arriving home and felt myself sinking.  The thing had been leaking and slowly but constantly watering the grass for several days.  I replaced it Saturday.  It's the third of five valves (4 in back, 1 in front) that I've replaced in the last few years.  I should go ahead and replace the last two but probably won't till they break.

As an electrical engineer, I should be ashamed of the wiring job.  I'll get around to fixing that one of these days. I guess the plumbing doesn't really look much better but hey, I'm not a plumber.  Bottom line; it works.

Adios

Went to lake for a bit of relaxation and fishing.  Turned out I misjudged the weather.  I couldn't have gotten any wetter if I had fallen into the lake.

Walked up to the old barite mine this morning.  We're back to our nice warm Arizona winter weather again.  It was probably around 60 when I started and maybe 65-70 on my back.  Ahhhhh, the outdoors.

On the way to the mine, looking west to Red Mountain

Sidewall of the mine, looking at Red Mountain

Shaft into the sidewall

Looking down the sidewall SE towards the Goldfield Mtns

After walking around the mine a bit, I wandered up to the ridge above it.  There's an abandoned dirt road on the ridge that eventually leads to a an overlook of the Salt River.

Coon Bluff Campground at extreme lower left

Salt River in foreground looking East towards Mazatzal Mtns

Ridge line road looking at top of Red Mountain

Salt River, Stewart Mtn in near foreground, Four Peaks Mtns in far background

As I was standing at the end of the ridge drinking some water and enjoying the view,  a middle-aged, stock broker looking guy came steaming up the road with his head down and doing quick time using two fiberglass walking sticks.  What seemed to be his faithful wife was keeping up but 30 or so paces behind and also concentrating solely on the trail.  I figured if I started back when they arrived that I'd have some privacy while they checked out the view.  Turned out I was wrong,  I wasn't 20 yards down the road when I heard them coming up from behind.  I turned off the road onto a side trail and damn it if they didn't stay behind me.  I finally just stood off the trail and let them pass then I cut cross country to really get rid of them.  10 or 15 minutes later, I saw them in the same formation heading up the next ridge.  If the wife had dropped dead with a heart attack, the husband wouldn't have noticed till he got back to his car.  The puzzling thing to me is why they bothered coming outdoors at all.  They didn't seem interested in anything around them.  I would think they could have gotten the same satisfaction from an elliptical trainer.  The wife could also have avoided the embarrassment of being totally ignored for a couple of hours.

I strolled by to check out the old mine shaft but the Forest Service decided to contribute to the dumbing down of the gene pool by covering the shaft opening with steel mesh.  Heaven forbid that some drunk teenager stumble into it.  The original mine shaft extended 300 ft down along a sloping fault line and at places extended a quarter mile horizontally. Most of the underground part has caved in and the top of the shaft had been already sealed.

Heading back, I cut through the old dump.  It's an old dump when the beer cans have been opened with a can opener.

Before I got to Bush Highway where the truck was parked, I passed a strange marker.  I could have been something done by kids but it was lying beside an old two-track road that could have been the original road through the area.  I'll try and look into it a bit more.

The cross is made from busted pieces of a foundation

The old road looks a lot clearer in person

Hmmmmm bluberry pie.  It should be cooled off by now.

Adios

Slipped away from work the other day and went for a walk out off of Bush Highway near the Salt River.  The rains have greened everything up.  It was too late in the morning to see any animals but signs were around.  There were deer tracks in the wash among a lot of horse tracks.

Ground squirrels had been cleaning out their holes and there was a large mound of sticks and trash piled up by a packrat under a dead ironwood tree.

Here's a picture of the packrat home but, predictably, it just looks like a pile of sticks.

It was still hazy because of the rains and the background mountains couldn't be seen but that seemed to make the Salt River Canyon stand out.

Well it's the day before Christmas and all through the house....I need to be starting my chores.

Adios