ODO: 307,523
We came up with a plan: Head north and explore a canyon with a fumarole that opened up during the earthquake of April 2010, camp as needed. Before we headed out, it was time for a resupply. Since we dragged out feet in the morning, we decided to complete one more project before the resupply and head out for adventure the following morning. Which project you ask? We wanted to shore up the core support, since our headlights were trying to fall out. Our Metal Wizard had some spare parts we were able to scavenge, and he and Berne put together a suitable fix in no time at all.
Now for more adventure! We had two possible routes into the canyon, an eight mile route and a sixteen mile route. Obviously we stared with the shorter route, but after battling large rocks in a rocky wash for a couple of miles we decided to try the other route. The longer route was much easier for the first thirteen miles, wide dirt roads and sandy washes. The next two and a half miles had us crawling through a rocky wash only slightly better than our first route. We got stopped a half mile from our destination by a completely washed out road. Luckily we planed to camp, so we set up where we stopped, and decided to hike the rest of the way in the morning.
One giant campfire and good night’s sleep later, we were ready to hike. We picked our way over and around boulders and cactus until we reached our destination. The fumarole was sitting at the end of a small canyon spewing angry Sulphur steam. After getting much too close to it, we hiked back to the trucks for adventure part 2: drive to the Laguna Salada. This is normally a dry lake bed, but because of all the rain farther north it is currently a lake. Our route took us through a different and awesome canyon before opening back up to desert. Because the lake only happens in very specific conditions, you never know when it will exist, or for how long. We explored the edges, and only tried to get stuck once.
Once we left the lake, and (FINALLY) had some Pastor tacos, we said farewell to our Wizard, and headed up a canyon to check out the Guadalupe Canyon Oasis Hot Springs. It’s a hot springs campground with private soaking tubs nestled deep in the canyon Because we had 4WD we were able to get into their best spot at the top of the campground. We went for a night time dip, slept late the next morning, and went for a morning dip before heading out on a waterfall hike. The “trail” wasn’t very clear, so we wandered around in the desert for a while, and did not manage to find it. Back at the hot spring we packed up and headed off to explore some rocks we liked the look of on our way up the canyon.
After driving through rock formations that looked like Flintstone’s condo buildings, we found a cool spot with a big rock backdrop. We spent a couple of days getting organized for our upcoming trip to the US, and exploring the rocks around us. KoKo managed to find a petroglyph at our campsite, and was beyond excited. She’s obsessed with all things ancient rock art. Some casual Googling told us there were many petroglyph sites in the immediate area, so we packed up and set off to find some in La Vibora Canyon. Oh! And we saw mountain goats!! The nice thing about the desert is that, if needed, you can make your own road. We made many of our own roads trying to find this canyon, but eventually we got there. We spent the next few hours scrambling up the canyon over huge boulders. We looked for (and found!!) petroglyphs until the sun started to go down and it was time to bushwhack our way to camp.
