Happy Camp Road

I've heard that the other road that descends from the Roger's Trough trailhead comes out near Boyce Thompson Arboretum. I left the house wondering where I should go yesterday and wound up on Happy Camp Road, to see where it would take me. I guess I could have looked at a map, but what fun is that? And a map, not even Google Earth, has pictures of the area (I'm working on fixing that). Anyway, I was going to see if it went up to Roger's Trough.

There are some nice views of Picketpost Mountain from Happy Camp Road.

The road is mostly one lane, so it was nice that I encountered only three other vehicles. One was an ATV with a very sad looking man on it. Seemed kind of ironic to see such a sad looking man on Happy Camp Road.

This is much prettier in person.

The road crosses the Arizona Trail in a couple of places. The trail looks overgrown. I'm sure not many people travel on this part of it at this time of year.

I got a late start so I only drove 6 or 7 miles along the road. The further I went, the rougher it got. I was starting to wonder if I would be able to continue for much longer. Maybe I'll find out this coming weekend.

I came across another rattle snake in the middle of the road. It was in a shady area that was pretty dark when I got there. I didn't see the snake until it was too late to stop. I tried to straddle it with the tires and I think I was successful. I got out to look for it and found it under a bush. It ignored me until I pointed the camera at it. Then it started rattling and hissing. Seemed healthy at both ends.

Snake tracks over my tire tracks. It left in a hurry.

I also saw another rattler that had been across the road not too long before I got there. It had been killed and had been placed a few feet to the side of the road. There were footprints to its carcass; it had been carried over there and carefully placed there. I was wondering why when I heard the sad man on the ATV approaching, on his was back from his ride. I drove up the road a little way and looked back. He stopped at the dead snake and got off his ATV. Maybe he killed it on his way out and left it until it quit thrashing (dead snakes have killed people). Now he was going to take it home to cook.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

Happy_Camp_2010_08_22