Hike With Friends from Boomerville to the Stone Cabin

This morning we led some friends out across the desert to try to retrace our steps from an earlier hike with other Boomers here in Boomerville.  Our friends included (l-r) Kathy, Tony, Ann, Gaila, Dee Dee, George, Bob and Dick:

 
We crossed Mitchell Mine Road from Boomerville and set out northeast into the desert, roughly paralleling BLM Road 190, which runs east-west south of Scaddan Mountain and north of Mitchell Mine Road.  One of the first sites we tried to locate was a gravesite we had found on our prior hike (see "Booming Across Scadden Wash").  Tony proved to be our great pathfinder, and he located the grave at N 33.64975, W 114.14415.

We started the hike early, at 8 am, and the low sun shone brightly on the desert scene:

We hiked toward a hill in front of Scaddan Mountain and then followed an ATV road around the north side of the hill.  Along the way, Gaila found a bird's nest in a cholla plant.  Below, some of the hikers are examining it:

At N 33.65259, W 114.11813, a foottrail left eastward from the ATV trail up a draw between the hill and Scaddan Mountain.  We followed this footpath along the base of the hill and upgradient to the east.  We remembered that we had seen petroglyphs in this area, but it was difficult to remember where.  Pocahontas Kathy, using her handy GPS, found us the rock with the petroglyphs at N 33.64689, W 114.11426 and poses here with her quarry:

One of the other hikers spotted a large rock with a petroglyph of a horse and rider, which someone had set up on a pile of stone next to a beautiful cactus:

Our trail led us back to BLM Road 190, up which we continued to the east.  We passed the Spanish Wall, which is also discussed in our prior blog entry noted above in this blog (Kathy is standing in front of it for scale):

Tony and Dee Dee had to turn back for a prescheduled appointment, but the rest of us continued on up to the stone cabin at N 33.64182, W 114.10008, which we also described more fully in our prior blog entry.  After a rest and a little poking around nearby mineshafts, we started back.  Dick and Gaila headed straight back down the road, but George, Kathy and David decided to explore a side road that climbed and then crossed a ridge near the Spanish Wall, heading south from BLM Road 190 at N 33.64285, W 114.10793.  After checking our directions with some ATV'ers we encountered, we descended to an old mining camp where the skeleton of a trailer remained:

Further on, we found what was probably a miner's truck, abandoned by the side of the road at 33.63998, W 114.11717.  David and Kathy hopped in and tried to take a spin in it, but there was no spin left:

The three of us continued down Mitchell Mine Road toward Boomerville, but took one look back over our shoulder and spotted this sign, which made its point despite poor grammar:

Eventually, we passed the junction of Mitchell Mine Road with BLM Road 190 (N 33.64795, W 114.13784) before arriving at Boomerville.  We were proud we could find almost all of the points of interest we had seen on our previous hike.  This time, we had our GPS.

With our new waypoints and our newfound assurance in our knowledge of this small area, we think we're ready to head out for another desert bushwhack in the near future.  Be sure to let us know if you want to come along!