Salt River tubing

No, not me. I can think of no reason I would ever want to do that again. I did want to get some videos of the drunks on the river, but they wouldn't behave badly when I had the camera pointed at them.

This area is normally a large expanse of bare dirt.

But first, the hike to the river. And first, a little background about that. For several years, when going through Bulldog Canyon OHV area, I had noticed large numbers of hoof prints crossing the area. It was in the spring that I saw them, and they seemed to be going north (towards the Salt River). I had always thought that it was deer going to the river for water. Then a year or two ago I read in the paper about some ranchers that would drive herds of sheep through there on their way to summer feeding grounds. Mystery solved. I've wanted to see the sheep making the trip, but it isn't announced beforehand. They crossed through Bulldog Canyon a week or two ago this year.

The winter rains had this area covered with plants, which had dried out and were then trampled by the sheep.

On to the hike. As I walked toward the Salt River, I could see where the sheep had been. I thought I might follow their path and see where they crossed the river. The river is a little higher than I'm used to seeing it, though, and a side channel that is normally dry blocked my path.

Side channel of the Salt River. The white stuff on the water is from some trees along the river. It coated everything.

The side channel at another spot.

I didn't have to walk down river very far to get to the main channel. I got three kinds of reactions when I pointed my camera at the people in the river. By far the most common was waves and smiles. I ruined most of my videos of those people by shaking the camera when I waved back. Next was complete indifference. Last was belligerence. I thought those people were just mean drunks looking for a fight, but when I got home and was looking at the videos, Lindsey looked over my shoulder and said, "Dad, you were taking pictures of people on the river? That's creepy!" So it seems that there is some sort of social taboo about taking pictures of people in a river. Or maybe it's about taking pictures of people I don't know. Or maybe it's about taking pictures of people in swim suits. Maybe it's because I was on the bank and not in the river. Or maybe it's all of those things and something else. Anyway, it's too complicated for me, so I think I'll stick to landscapes in the future.

Here's a short video illustrating the noise on the river. Bad music and helicopters. Sheriff Joe's boys fly up and down the river all day.

I looked at a few other videos of peoples Salt River tubing experiences. They often add a music sound track so you can't tell what it sounds like on the river. There were not many people on the river yesterday, though (it's early in the season), so I didn't capture the ruckus that I wanted. I wanted to do that so people planning a family tubing trip would have a better idea of what they are getting into. If I had captured what I wanted, though, the videos would probably have been flagged as inappropriate.

A typical reaction to the camera; smiles and waves.

More happy tubers.

This is a video of some minnows in the river. I included it for the background noises. Screams and a red-winged blackbird.

A "fast" part of the river.

The last video is of a guy that was yelling, "Take a picture of me!" He asked if it was going to be on the web and I told him what I tell everybody that asks that: Google Art's desert exploration blog. He looked at his companions and said something like, "Gog. Google ... desert. What? Exorcism? Oh, I'll never remember that." He was plastered. I don't know if he'll even remember being on the river. Maybe one of his fellow tubers will remember and help him find this.

"Take a picture of me!"

I took some pictures of other stuff, too. There were some nice prickly pear flowers.

It was only about 97 while I was out there, and I wasn't moving around a lot, but I got there at 3 to get the tubers. After more than an hour in the sun, I was getting uncomfortable. I had the AC blowing full blast for the 30 minute drive home, but the cameras were still hot to the touch by the time I got around to downloading pictures. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2010_05_08

Salt River looney tunes

When we went tubing down the Salt River a couple of months ago, we saw a lot of red winged blackbirds. I've been wanting to get some pictures of them since then. I went down to the river today to get some. It was a funny trip.

I planned my trip with Google Earth. I parked where the road has a wide shoulder. It was a short walk to the river. I thought there would be a bank there, but there was a cliff. I went up river a little ways and found this guy. He was standing there drinking beer and entertaining everybody on the river. Sorry about the shaky camera, but I was zoomed in a lot.

Here's a group of tubers. A couple of them are excited because they spotted somebody (me) on the bank.

From Salt_River_2008_09_13

More about excited tubers later.

I could see a rocky bank downstream, so I went in that direction. There was a place where people used to drive down to the river, so it was easy to get to the bank. Check out the rocky bank in this picture.

From Salt_River_2008_09_13

Those rocks are home to thousands of spiders. I didn't notice them at first because they hid when I approached. I was standing still by the river and noticed a spider on a rock. Then another, and another and ... They were all over the place. I was trying to get a picture of each one but I gave up. Some of them were chasing others around. Sometimes they would skip across the water to get to another rock. Here's the one I like best.

From Salt_River_2008_09_13

If you stand still, the drunks in the river usually won't even know you are there. One guy's tube slowly rotated until he was looking directly at me, though. Suddenly, his hands shot up over his head and he started bouncing up and down and shouting, "Hey, hey, hey man, hey!", as if he hadn't seen another human being in a month. I waved. I'm standing there with two cameras around my neck. He says, "Hey man, are you taking pisshures?" I didn't misspell it. That's what he said. It was the best he could do. I told him I wanted to get some pictures of red winged blackbirds and asked if he'd seen any. He said, "Yeah, man, I got a red winged blackbird for you right here in my pants!", then laughed uproariously at his wit. So did his equally incapacitated buddy. I told him he was very funny. I think he took it as a compliment. He was quiet for a while as he tried to think of something else funny to say. Or maybe he was just busy polluting his patch of the river.

Two more guys were a short distance behind those two. One of them told me that he usually sees red winged blackbirds on the river but hadn't seen any today. Then his buddy seemed to regain consciousness. He must have been drinking for two. He said something like, "What? Blackbirds? Who?" His friend was trying to shut him up but quickly realized the futility. "Hey, yeah, I saw one! It was back there (points upriver) at 30, uh, 30,000 feet! Ha ha ha haaaa!. It was at latitude 75 24 longitude 16 18 1000 feet ..." He carried on like that, shouting "latitude" and "longitude" and random assortments of numbers and units of measure, until his voice slowly faded away down the river. Maybe he was hoping I would compliment his humor, also.

I don't know why there aren't more drownings on that river. I never did see a red winged blackbird. Click below to see all of the pictures.