Chaco Canyon

Chaco Culture National Historical Park - Gallo Campground - 20 August

3 nights, I'm letting myself have 3 photos.

The best of all earthly drinks (Waiter, waiter, percolator)

Thanks, Enterprise Mfg Co

So, I like to focus my effort for maximum impact (this is my new way of saying 'lazy') and therefore although we have not one, but two, hand grinders, we usually just buy ground coffee. Since it's not espresso we're making, the ultimate freshness of just-ground beans doesn't seem to matter quite so much. Also, laz- I mean focus.

But I have at last seen the ultimate coffee mill, at the Beatty Museum. Machines of this type date to the 1870s - this one may be later, as Beatty didn't really take off til the early 1900s. It would probably have been used in a mercantile store, of course.

Probably will not work for camping. Guess we'll keep buying ground beans for now.

Our camp coffee pot has been mentioned in dispatches already. Made by the legendary (in Sweden, anyway) Berggren, maker of beautiful things, it's a vintage enamelled percolator with cheery coffee-based song lyrics - in Swedish - in gothic script around the sides. 

The verse is the first two lines of a coffee song ("Kaffevisan" - you have to love a language that has a
word just for songs about coffee.) 

"Kaffetåren den bästa är
av alla jordiska drycker"

Or "coffee is the best of all earthly drinks".

I bought it together with a kettle ("En vaktad kittel blir aldrig bränd" - a watched kettle will never burn - huh, it's about caution not about impatience :) and we use them for camping and other travelling, for a comforting brew-up or the essential morning fuel or heating dishwater or whatever.


Yeah coffee songs. I know "Java Jive", the Manhattan Transfer version. And? Think I could do with more, would give me something to sing under my breath while I watch the percolator perc away over the camp stove at 5 a.m. of a Sunday morning. They're out there, I just need to learn them.

I thought the Kaffevisan on my coffee pot might be beyond me - the first version I found struck me as kinda weird. But this one looks more doable although it may require all the cheerfulness of a Nevada morning sky as well as quite a lot of ... well ... coffee. 

Must go and make another pot now.

Fairy tale kingdom - Bailey's Hot Springs

Three views of Bailey's Hot Springs from 95

Friday night we camped at Bailey's Hot Springs and thereby stumbled into a fairy tale. Of course we had brought our own castle with us. To have a moat, however, is a novelty.

Peacocks about to cross the moat, I mean stream. 

Our hostess directed us to a meadow by the spring-houses, where grasses and herbs are flowering. The spring water is piped to the top of this sward, falling with the constant sound of water into a narrow stream that arcs across to, and continues alongside, an otherwise perfectly ordinary gravel RV park. Once the tent was pitched, the stream curved around three sides of it - moat, check.

Two loops and a spring: the goodness of side roads

Panaca Spring

Lazy Sunday morning in camp, reading and sleeping, maybe somewhat in denial over having to go home. My reluctance to leave only increased as the campground steadily emptied out around us. It would clearly be almost deserted by night ... and a quiet campground is pretty much my favourite kind. But we had clichés to insert and eventually we packed up and shipped out.

Go straight home though? Yeah nah. Side roads for the win.

The horsethief and the stars: back in Lincoln County

Arrow Canyon Range with pylon and agave

The drive up to Caliente is starting to seem familiar, and we look forward to all the little highlights of the road - the Arrow Canyon Range faults (we stopped and got some great photos this time), the sudden accesses of green as we come into the oases on the route north and east: Pahranagat, Ash Springs, Crystal Springs, Caliente, Panaca. The road passing over ranges of upthrust blocky hills, up and down but every summit a little higher than the previous one as we climb up towards the Colorado Plateau (further east than we will go this trip). The golden light of Friday afternoon turning to evening, turning to twilight as we swither between stopping sooner to have made camp while it's still light and continuing to where we had planned to stay. Resolutely declining all further diversions so we can at least pitch the tent while it's still dusk. Being glad I put the lamps where we will easily find them in the car in the dark ...

And finally, the last stretch of road. At this time of day, we drive with a careful eye out for deer crossing. This time, we turned east just north of Pioche and gradually climbed a small paved road into a river valley that has cut its way through lava ash tuff. The broad valley narrows quite abruptly and the road crests and dips like a mule trying to shake its rider. On either side, pinon and juniper, then a few houses, then volcanic rock soaring above on either side, grassy meadows, lines of trees showing where the water runs. Our destination was the Horsethief Gulch campground at Spring Valley State Park.

Easier to describe than to photograph!

The campground was more than half full already. We picked out a site, made camp, had a cold supper
by lamplight, and enjoyed a very mild evening - lying on a blanket and watching the stars brighten as the daylight slowly faded. We saw numerous satellites and several planets as well as the Milky Way. It was a perfectly clear evening. The late arrival of neighbours with trucks shining headlights straight towards our site put an end to our night vision; we went to bed.

Ranch Campground

In the morning, we went for a bike ride up the valley a couple of miles. (There is much more road available than we made use of.) We only went as far as the upper campground, where we saw swallow nests by the rafters of one ramada. There was nobody there. With its rock wall niches and slight air of overgrown neglect, the Ranch campground seems wilder and lonelier - and certainly quieter and less occupied - than its lower counterpart. Just goes to show, the name isn't everything.

Eroded holes? or MOUTHS?!!	Volcanic rock down a crazy steep hillside	Intrepid!

I have to describe Spring Valley (and the Eagle Valley reservoir) as yet another under-visited jewel in Lincoln County. The upper valley was seasonally occupied five thousand years ago or more, and then, much more recently, farmed by Mormon settlers in the second half of the 19th century. The park headquarters are in one of the old ranch houses. The lower valley, a couple of miles below the park at Ursine (great name!), is still farmed and many of the yards show a neatness that, rightly or wrongly, I associate with Mormon households.

Eagle Valley Reservoir

In the mid 1960s, the valley was dammed for agricultural purposes. The reservoir has since been
stocked with rainbow trout and we saw quite a number of people fishing while we were there. Theoretically there's swimming too, but up close, the water had a foul smell to it and what looked like an algal bloom - we left it to the fish and fisherfolk.

It is a beautiful spot though ...

Three views from our campsite at Horsethief Gulch Campground, Spring Valley State Park NV

... so beautiful that only a very great curiosity took us into Pioche where we spent much of the day.

Itinerary

Friday: 93 from Henderson to Pioche, 322 to Spring Valley State Park.

Lincoln County rematch

John Muir once said "The mountains are calling and I must go." I hear it a little differently ... it's the desert that calls. (This is a mystery to me. More on it anon.) For now, the desert was calling us and we had even managed to persuade the teen to go, so on Friday we packed up Harry's boot good and tight with a thrilling array of camping equipment, shut the cats in with all their necessities, and got on the freeway north. We had unfinished business with Lincoln County.

Arrow Canyon Range NV:
The dark grey band makes the fault lines conspicuous even at 70 mph.
And look! Moon!

The second time up a highway can be a little as a song that was sung or a story told. That is to say, it can be a bit tedious or it can catch your breath like it did the first time.

Having fallen for Nevada's stripy hills and mountains, it's never less than a quiet pleasure for me to drive through its valleys and see those improbable blocks of rock slowly sinking into their blankets of sand and sediment.

And on this particular drive, there's a stretch of 93 after the road turns north for the first time and the valley is bounded on the east by the spectacular Arrow Canyon range, gorgeous with horizontal bands of colour in the early evening light. The moon already risen, and that crazy Nevada blue sky ...

Traffic had slowed us down a bit leaving LV, so instead of enjoying the sunset at our campsite, we enjoyed it with the almost full moon over the Delamar Valley as we passed through.

Kershaw-Ryan State Park has a modest first-in, best-dressed campground. It was about a third full when we arrived and made a couple of circuits in the gathering twilight - looking and calculating for daytime shade. We pitched the tents hurriedly by lamp- and moon-light, which definitely makes it sound more romantic and enjoyable than it was, then sat down to a supper of cold baked chicken and herbed sweet potato salad. (Somewhere during this period the mosquitoes discovered me. I'm not sure why I got the 'most delicious' vote ... anyway, the welts have mostly gone now.) We didn't stay up late to watch the stars, although we did take some time to enjoy the cliffs by moonlight. (Also, there was a Welcome Frog or at least a resident frog by the ablutions block and I saw it eat a bug, just like that. It is these small things that make me happy.) A campfire would wait for Saturday night.

Jacket keeps it warm :)

I was up bright and early at about 4:30 on Saturday morning. The sky was already lightening and it
felt cold (well, I say cold. It was probably 16 or 17 C.) I got the coffee going and enjoyed the sunrise, painting colour everywhere. The campground, in the lower part of the canyon, is about 20 years old. (It was rebuilt after its predecessor was washed out by flash floods.) On either side the ash-flow tuff cliffs catch the light beautifully at every hour of day.

Stove and coffeepot did their mighty work; yoghurt and cereal (or thereabouts) for breakfast. Then Simon and I went for a walk up the canyon while the teen stayed in camp reading.

I'm still nursing plantar fasciitis (or fascists, as autocorrect would have you believe) so we took the car up a mile or so to the visitor parking and walked from there. The canyon overlook walk winds up through gardens and pleasure-grounds (I think that's the right word when there's a wading pool and a terrain for playing horse-shoes?), past 40 foot high thickets of wild grape. The trail then divides, into or across a wash. We went across and up through juniper scrub, the trail twisting back on itself to traverse layers of rock to the mesa above, which afforded a view over the canyon to the valley beyond and even a glimpse of the Union Pacific line.

We saw deer or maybe bighorn sheep tracks and, more excitingly, big cat tracks - could have been bobcat or mountain lion, hard to tell. The prints were about 3 inches wide, and some of them were very clear, but too hard to photograph. 

To return, we scrambled down into the wash and followed the riverbed. Whatever big cat had been up to the summit had also been down in the wash - possibly to drink, possibly to hunt. We skirted a bulrush-fringed pool guarded by a tarantula hawk wasp (which is, alone, a sufficient argument against a benevolent creator) and scrambled down a couple of small dry waterfalls. Then I came round a corner and saw a snake - the first one I've seen alive and face to face in the wild here, as opposed to watching its flickering back depart. It tasted the air and high-tailed it into the grasses and low shrubs. I'm pretty sure it was a mountain gartersnake, most of a metre long, with handsome pale lemon and dark green markings.

Back at camp, it was time for a nap before we headed out for the afternoon.

Itinerary

Friday: From LV, I15 then 93 through Coyote Springs, Alamo, ET junction, and northeast past Delamar to Caliente. Turn south on 317 to Kershaw-Ryan State Park.
Saturday: Kershaw-Ryan State Park ...

My wonderful stove

My wonderful stove was beautifully upcycled from an aluminium can. It runs on isopropyl alcohol and can boil a litre of water in less than ten minutes - when there's snow on the ground. It packs into a tiny plastic box. (Even with its separate windshield, it takes up less room than a barbecue lighter.) It's shiny, though not as shiny as it used to be.  

The little stones in the measuring cup are for levelling it on rough ground. The medicine measuring cup came with, but I only use it for keeping the stones away from the walls of the stove, since there are measuring markings on the inside of the stove anyway.

To use it, you pour in the alcohol (I buy Heet antifreeze in the yellow bottle), set it alight, wait until the side jets start burning, and set the pot directly on the top. This chokes the flame from the main large round cavity, and paradoxically provides better fuel efficiency. It does best with a pot that's at least 5 inches across - our coffee pot is borderline too small. 

An early outing was at Cedar Pockets (great name!) at Christmas time, as we stopped for a brew-up. Yes, that's correct, as kettles go, it is the coolest in the world, closeup below*.

And later the same day, made soup for lunch at Pipe Spring (another great name). I managed without gloves but there were flurries of snow while we were there. (In case you're wondering, it's a turkey and avocado soup.)

I bought the stove from Mechanic Mike on ebay and I heartily recommend both the stove itself and the seller. Here's his video.

---

*So is the matching coffee pot. These guys will probably get their own post some time. 
 

Springs and the Calligraphy Highway interlude: the Taj Mahal

Our tent is the Taj Mahal. (We probably look more like vintage comedy than these guys do, while putting it up. The cats stayed home.) I can stand upright in it, and we can fit a queen size air bed. The thing has a garage (not shown in the video). Next time, I'm planning to take along the gorgeous flag bunting our oldest girl made for our wedding and drape it festively about for a proper castle effect. I'm sure the hipsters in their roof-boxed Civic hatchbacks laugh in scorn ... frankly I'm too old and chronically sleep deprived to care. Give me the comfy, thank you very much.

We divided and conquered, with Simon putting up the tent and getting it ready to sleep in, while I tended the fire, grilled the steak, baked spuds in the ashes, and set the table (and, mind you I'm not confirming this, possibly sampled the beer). Also smoked my clothes and hair, as you do.

I've tried quite a few kinds of cooking, but this is actually the first time I've cooked steak on an open fire. It was terrific, I have to say. Steak's pretty hard to mess up. And yes, we did have veges as well.

We enjoyed the sunset as we ate. Then, tidied up, sat round in our comfy camp chairs, getting up to put more wood on the fire and more layers of clothes and blankets on ourselves as it got darker and colder. It was a toss-up whether we could stay awake for the sky to get all the way dark - this doesn't happen until nearly 10 at this time of year, and it had been a two-blog-posts-worth day. We managed it though, just barely. Long enough to admire Jupiter, Mars and Saturn delineating the ecliptic, and such a lavish plenty of stars (it was clear.)

I decided to make up my own constellations, but now I am decidedly disappointed to discover that my favourite one already exists. I was starting to think of constellations as making approximately as much sense as sun signs, but now I see I was wrong. It's a tiara, though, not a crown, clearly.

From http://www.topastronomer.com/StarCharts/Constellations/Corona-Borealis.php

Who doesn't love a tiara, right?

Right.

Itinerary

Well, not really, because it was all in the same place. Here

Springs and the Calligraphy Highway pt 2

Last time, on Desert Sage Adventure, we had caught our breath after taking Harry on a whirlwind rough road adventure ...

Highway 93 is also called the Great Basin Highway, and one of these days we will take it all the way up to Great Basin National Park. But that day was not today. We would turn further east at Panaca, cross into Utah and head down 18 to turn off at Central.

Before that, coffee. The Koolatron fits a lot of stuff, but I just didn't have room for iced coffee. And yet paradoxically, we ourselves had all kinds of room for iced coffee. Caliente seemed like a bigger dot on the map than any of the others. We drove up over the mountains - passing by Oak Springs Summit Trilobite Area, of which you, dear readers, will likely hear more in the future. The road dips down into yet another gorgeous little valley. Houses dot the landscape and we tell each other this would be a great place to live, and the sandstone cliffs over you would teach you a sense of perspective and also be just the loveliest distraction, and we stupidly look out for 'for sale' signs.

Then around another bend, and we are in Caliente, quaint wooden buildings everywhere and a grand mission style railway station. On the far side of the tracks, a couple of blocks of shops ... aha! The Brandin Iron. Reckon they'll sell us a cup of coffee or a root beer float.

Best wait staff service we've had for ages, she knew when to hold 'em, when to fold 'em. I don't think we waited more than a second or two for anything at any point, and yet she never seemed pushy or in our faces. Her suggestion of onion rings was a good one (well, they tasted great. Nutritionally, hmm ... they had veges in them?) A good stop.

But still miles to go. Coming down into Panaca is an exciting experience; there's a stopping place / pullout  half way down the hill, without any barrier, that has a hundred foot drop to cattle pastures. This, too, was my first conscious drive-through of desert crop circles. They are just as green in person, but somehow less improbable in appearance than from the air:

We turned east onto 319 at Panaca - there are hot springs there that are still on the to-do list, but otherwise it aspires only to the style of census-designated place with one or two notable old buildings. We continued into another lovely basin-and-range valley, and crossed into Utah.

A calligraphy road, UT 319

Where the road maintenance schedule is out of sync with Nevada's.
And they've a full and frank understanding of this desert crop circle thing:

No, it's not a video game. I'm not sure you could make this stuff up - no one would believe. As always in the south-west - see green, and wonder where the water comes from. Here, a close inspection of the map (click the image above to see it) shows more than one canal and a creek that hardly looks up to the job. Since I read Cadillac Desert I'm even more aware of looking for where the water comes from, who controls it, and what they do with it

Anyway, from the ground it all looks pretty normal - if we weren't in a desert - maybe barring the irrigation machinery, but nothing surprised me enough to stop and photograph it. We turned south at Beryl Junction through more improbable greenliness (it;s my new word, do you like it?). The day was getting on, so we did not stop at Mountain Meadows, but drove through more hills (it's not called basin and range for nothing), turned east again at Central and slowly (so as not to disturb the cattle) up the small road to Pine Valley. (They might understand crop circles but they have something to learn about grazing the long acre.)

Pine Valley is full of, well, pines. Principally Ponderosa, or Yellow pines. Also oak trees. It's cool and high and tucked into a semicircle of mostly wooded mountains that feed the beginning of the Santa Clara River. It is every bit as charming as it sounds! And yes, we stayed there, camping ... Simon managed to get the last available Saturday night site until August ... and yes I will tell you the story ... next time.

Itinerary

Saturday: ... Caliente NV, Pine Valley UT.