Decided to head north out of Kentucky Camp and check it out. Wind is crazy. Beautiful morning sunrise… and then the crazy wind began. Hiked about 2-3 miles, for about 2 hours. Met a hiker named Nick. See photo. Saw 3 vehicles.
Taken out the side door.
Taken out my bedroom window this morning.
Taken as I set off to hike this morning, looking westward.
This was one of 3 stock tanks I saw. Hard to imagine needed to drink that water.
This was the second stock tank I saw and it had a large dead bird in it. I found two sticks and removed the bird, then posted on an AZ Trail hiking FB page, would you drink it if you had to… and a guy said if you had to you would have to. Will I ever need water that bad? How would you treat it to be safe?
Today’s hike stayed on Forest Rd. 163 the whole time. Nice tread.
Several nice boondocking / dispersed camping spots along this road with large turnout areas.
Someone had been dry panning or screening for gold here.
This was turn-around port. I rested here, met camper Nick, and had a drink of water.
I have finally figured a way to fix my SPOT so it faces the sky, at least on my day pack. Securely tied, as the belt loop thingy is not very secure.
Thru-hiker Nick looks a little funny, like he has big boobs, but I believe those are his water bottles, under a very large poncho, which also covers his backpack.
As I sat here, I wondered about wild edibles and if there might be a few I could rely on for some fresh greens and vitamins and minerals??? According to Paul Petzoldt’s teachings, one wild violet provides all the Vit. C you need for a day. I might try to identify a few common edible plants.
This was a white pipe sticking up out of the ground, but I don’t know what for. It was uphill from this empty stock tank.
I figured out another good little exercise while hiking, to walk across the cattle guards without holding on… right now I am holding on but am much more steady than I was even a week ago.
It was very cold and windy on the return hike. My clothes were adequate, but if I were wet, it would be a bad situation. Wind chill factor is pretty bad.
The best part of my kayaking was returning to shore and spotting my van. It is also the best part of hiking. In the left the van is about in the middle just to the right of the Century Plant stalk. In the right you can see the white dot, on the left of the photo. Can’t wait to get out of this wind.
I didn’t think it would rain today, but as I got back out near the highway, I could see it in the distance. I decided to try and find one more trailhead, off Forest Road 62 up near Greaterville. Well, there is nothing great about Greaterville, in fact I could not find any buildings.
I did finally find the Trailhead, and water was cached there, there was room to park, though I won’t spend the night there as it is too open and the road did seem busy. There was another one of those scary signs about smugglers and illegals being in the area… and there was also the below sign offering a reward regarding people killing cattle.
Back at the intersection of FR 229 and FR 62 (or Greaterville and Box Canyon Roads). I am tired of wash-board roads. Enough.
Ah, pavement again (also wash-board pavement, but pavement non-the-less).
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