Last attempt for this area

I decided to make one more attempt to get to the top of the Goldfield Mountains in this one area. For once the sun was shining. It was in the upper 60s and there was just a light breeze. I packed food, lots of water, extra clothes, and got an early start. My only concern was that I have a cold. If it had been a work day, I would have had to stay home from work. The company is concerned about swine flu. They always tell people to stay home when they're sick, but they've really been emphasizing that this year. My cold seems to be mild, but I would be the only person at work with a cold if I went in. I would have felt guilty going for a hike instead of going to work. Didn't have to worry about that, though. I had planned to head home as soon as I felt like the cold was making me feel drained, but except for a few sneezes there wasn't any problem.

Ah, it's nice to have sunshine for a hike.

The sneezes were kind of cool. My family tells me I sneeze too loud, but I'm trying to keep it down. When I'm hiking, though, I don't hold back. I heard some cool echos from the mountains and in the canyons.

I'm going to try going up over there.

It turns out that I couldn't get very far where I had planned to climb. When I'm on a steep slope hundreds of feet above the desert floor, I kind of loose my nerve. That's probably a good thing, though. The view was nice from where I was. I found a flat rock and sat down to have a snack and enjoy the view. I probably would have stayed there a long time, but a honey bee kept bumping me. Then another one joined him, and they started bumping more. I decided to leave before more showed up or somebody got trigger happy. I don't want to be trying to outrun killer bees on a steep slope.

Too risky to cross this, and I might not be able to go far beyond it.

On the way downhill, I saw something large and shiny off to my left. Naturally, I went to investigate. It was just a rock, but while I was there I noticed a canyon that also needed investigation.

There's a canyon back there. I need to check it out.

I saw no sign of people in that canyon, except for one balloon and that doesn't count. I'm sure somebody has been back there, but people don't go there very often. I was hoping to find some undiscovered native American ruins or something, but of course I didn't. The canyon quickly got steep and I couldn't follow it very far.

Looks like it turns right and gets narrow.

This turned out to be less impressive than the Wind Cave on Pass Mountain.

Looking up the canyon. It gets pretty steep.

I sometimes find water in the desert, but I haven't found anything I'd like to drink.

I couldn't go far beyond the pool of water. I meandered back to the truck along a different route. I saw footprints (other than mine) and horse hoof prints when I got closer to the road. Whoever was back there didn't seem to go far, though.

Click here to see the map, or below to see all of the pictures.

BC_2010_01_01