Booming Across Scadden Wash

We're staying at Boomerville, outside Quartzsite, Arizona, and we decided to take a walk with some of the Escapees Boomers this morning.  When we arrived at our group meetup location, we found a group of serious hikers ready to set out on their own, longer, 7.5 mile hike into the hills around nearby Scaddan Mountain.  We thought, "Hey, this is our kind of walk!" and asked if we could join the group.  We were very glad we did.

We set off from Scadden Wash, where our rv's are parked, across Mitchell Mine Road, and out into the desert in Smith Wash, roughly paralleling BLM Road 190 as it runs east past Plomosa Town Site into the western edge of the Plomosa Mountains.  Our leader, Steve, is an experienced hiker, knows the area, and had done this hike several times before.  He led us out across an open, rocky area, and before long we met our first surprise --

-- the gravesite of one Elizabeth M. Mullen, who, according to the gravestone, died in 1996.  The tablet said, "Rest in Peace in the Desert She Loved."  We observed a moment of silence before moving on.

Marked graves are not very common on these BLM lands, but there were memorials to other spirits that had once lived in this desert area.  Steve pointed out a bleached deer antler:

We saw sign of deer, rabbit, packrats, fox and coyote on the fauna side of the ledger.  On the flora sign, of course saguaro, jumping cholla --

-- creosote bushes, sagebrush, barrel cactus, ocotillo, catnip and mistletoe.  Most ubiquitous was cryptobiotic soil, which consists of soil cyanobacteria, lichens and mosses, and plays an important ecological roles in the arid Southwestern deserts.  These crusts often represent over 70% of the living ground cover in this environment.  Cryptobiotic crusts increase the stability of otherwise easily eroded soils, increase water infiltration in regions that receive little precipitation.  Steve asked us to be careful and step around these crusts, because they can often take 50 years or more to developed, and will die with one errant footfall.

It is possible that this area was often travelled by humans during prehistory.  Steve showed us petroglyphs that, he reported, appear genuine although they have not, to his knowledge, been scientifically validated.  They showed up vibrantly against the patina of the stone in this area:

Mining - especially for gold and silver, has been prevalent in this region for centuries.  It is still possible to stake a claim to an area of ground, and we saw several claim stakes such as those shown in the photo below.  Near the center of the foreground is a grey iron stake which is a USGS survey marker, which suggested, Steve reported, that we were probably at the corner of four separate mining claims - two of which were represented by the yellow sign on the left and the white post to the right of the survey marker:

David spotted a particularly lovely barrel cactus and insisted on a photo to memorialize this platonic meeting (no human or cactus was harmed in the encounter):

The object of our hike was a structure various known locally as the "Stone House" or "Stone Cabin," perched atop a rise right on the BLM road:

While others rested or started their snacks, Kathy and David hiked down a hill to take a closer look at two active mine shafts that were marked by caution tape around their perimeters.  Here, Kathy peers down into one of the shafts:

Our shadows were also curious about the depth of this shaft, but, alas, their curiosity wasn't to be satisfied:  the shaft was so deep we couldn't see the bottom:

This mine shaft had a makeshift ladder to provide access:

We rejoined the group, just in time for Steve's wife to take a photo to memorialize the moment:

From the cabin, we could see westward in the direction from which we had come, with the RV's of Boomerville, the town of Quartzsite sitting in the LaPosa Plain, and the Dome Rock Mountains in the background:

Having taken in this scenic view, we started back toward Boomerville.  We may have generally retraced our route, but were still novelties to come.

One notable historic site we passed is known as the "Spanish Wall," which is said to have been a retaining wall build of stone on one side of an old Spanish gold mine.  However, it is difficult to find much factual information documented about the site.  In recent years, the wall was vandalized, leaving only the left portion in the photo below intact:

A more recent relic stumbled upon by one of our intrepid hikers was a blue plastic weather balloon, released who-knows-how-long-ago for who-knows-what purpose.

Perhaps a test of the winds for a fireworks display, or perhaps to prepare for some wilderness hot air ballooning?  We'll never know.

By the time we got back to Boomerville, we all agreed this had been a strenuous enough hike.  While it was mainly a level walk, the desert surface was littered with stones that could be treacherous if stepped on without care, and even with care, we all got a major stretch of our ankle muscles and tendons.

We asked Steve if we could join him on another hike, but unfortunately, his schedule won't permit him to lead another one during this Quartzsite stay.  However, as a consolation, Kathy and David gained just enough knowledge of the local area to feel confident to set out on their own bushwhacks. Who knows - perhaps we'll run across the infamous Packrat Hotel (an old travel trailer that has been taken over by hundreds of desert packrats), or some more mining camps, or perhaps some of those mountain goats Steve reported seeing higher up in the hills were were traversing.  If you feel like joining us on our next bushwhack, just send us a message or knock on our RV door and we'll make sure you get to share the adventure!