Wednesday, February 20, 2019, was our last day boondocking at The Steps near Parker, Arizona. We had two good hikes from this location, and were hoping to be able to paddle our kayaks on Lake Havasu. However, Mother Nature refused to cooperate. While we have kayaked in cold weather before, the 20 mile per hour winds are enough to turn even the hardiest of paddlers around. The stiff wind also made biking out of the question. So, another hike it was.
After a quick stop at the new Hangar 24 Brewery in Lake Havasu, we decided to head just north of the airport and try to find Dead Burro Canyon. We found a hike posted on AllTrails, a crowdsource app for hiking, biking and off-road travel. The hike included a route description and a hand drawn map. We usually try to rely on our own research, but our hand-held GPS recently died, so we decided to make do with 20th Century tools. We weren't really expecting to find dead burros in the canyon, but we did see a number of live ones.
After taking numerous burro photos, we decided to leave the band of burros behind and continue with our trek. It took a few minutes to match the trail description and map, but we were finally able to make sense of it. We found the dirt road and started our trek.
To reach the canyon, we had to enter into the Havasu National Wildlife Refuge. We later learned that the Havasu Refuge is within the Pacific Flyway, a major north-south migratory route along the western coast of the United States. Hundreds of bird species stop here to rest and refuel during their long journey. Many species also breed and overwinter here. Because of its importance to birds, the refuge is considered an Important Bird Area in the State of Arizona. Unfortunately, because it is winter and we were so high up in the mountains, we never saw a single bird.
We did have some really cool geology to look at. The Mohave Mountains are a small mountain range which are part of the bigger basin and range system that covers much of Arizona. We followed a faint trail as it led us across an alluvial fin. It could be the trail described in our hiking guide or it could be a burro path. We could see in the distance what appeared to be the water tank shown on the map (two TINY orange dots in the upper center of the photo below). So, we thought we were going in the correct direction.
In order to work our way over to the water tank, we hiked down into a large wash. We weren't the only ones that ended up in the wash. We tried to figure out whether this large boulder fell from above and got washed into the wash, or whether the water in the wash swept away all the sand and gravel, exposing the top of a larger formation for all the world to see. We may never know.
As we continued down the wash, we saw lots of evidence of volcanic activity.
Volcanic rhyolite tends to ooze downhill. In the photo below, a small cave has formed at the base of the flow.
We soon left the wash behind and began our climb up into the hills. We got our first glimpse of the water tank retention pool.
A metal fence protects the tanks and makes a great hand railing we used to climb up to take a closer look at the dam.
With all the recent rain and snow that Arizona has received, we were not surprised to see pools of water in what is usually a dry wash.
The dam creates a deep pool of water at the base of a rock ledge. The pool is covered with a wooden canopy. We are not sure why the pool is covered. It might be to prevent evaporation in the hot summer months.
Further up the wash, a wire and rock barrier stops the water from rushing too fast into the dam.
From the dam, we could look down on the water tanks. Water from the dam flows down pipes to fill the tanks.
Other hikers have been here and left this little inuksuk to point the way.
After leaving the water tank, we decided to head back in order to meet up with our friends Ron and Dee for dinner. While we didn't actually get to Dead Burro Canyon itself, we did get to see real life burros, so that makes up for it. In the photo below, Kathy took one last look back to see if the burros were still up on the far mesa. She couldn't see any. So we returned to our Jeep.
However, just at we approached the last wash, three burros ran right across our path! It was a great way to end our hike.
We move on to Grand Canyon Caverns tomorrow, so there is plenty more adventure ahead. Until then, stay thirsty my friends.
POSTSCRIPT: Continuing this winter's anomalously wet and cold nature, we awoke on February 21 to find that 3-5 inches of snow are falling north of us in Kingman and all along our route to the Grand Canyon Caverns in Peach Springs. Change of plans. We've booked a few days south of here in Salome, Arizona. We'll have to defer the Grand Canyon Caverns to another year.
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