Good morning, it was pretty cool considering we knew it would be in the triple digits later. I knew we wanted to make tracks to higher ground ASAP.
After making some breakfast we let Kevin know we were going to start putting up the hill and check out a side road to a cabin we knew was there. With our Ham radio linking us to Kevin we headed out.
The side road to the cabin is relatively short. This spot has natural rock tanks that hold water coupled with a cement wall it can hold enough water for earlier settlers livestock.
This was a decent cabin. Not like the adopt a cabins of Death Valley and the Mojave, but still a nice cabin with old artifacts.
We enjoyed our mini side trip and knew that this road goes much further, but that’s for another day. Back at the main road we still had some time to hang out and wait for Kevin so we watched the helicopters flying loads of rafters to and from their jumping off point.
We stopped off at the Mt. Trumbull School house. It’s a copy of the one that burnt down, but it’s still got a lot of history of the area in it and is worth the stop.
I love 3D maps!
We headed up to the high point of the dirt road near Mt. Trumbull where there is a Forest Service Cabin. Cabin isn’t really the right word as it’s more of a compound. The big cabin sleeps 15 or 20 people comfortably.
Sidebar Story: The reason I know about this cabin is from the mapping days. We’d put in a long couple of weeks so the local BLM head decided to give us a little treat and said we should take a day off and stay at the Mt Trumbull cabin. So, he handed us a key and off we went from St. George. An hour or so later we got to the cabin. It was impressive looking. As we pulled up the excitement grew! The problem was the key... it didn’t work.
It didn’t even fit in the lock. There were signs from the FBI about video monitoring and felony entering a Government installation etc. We KNEW we were supposed to be here, we mapped for living so we all knew we were at the right place... So, we jumped the fence and decided we needed to find a way into the cabin. So, I found a window on the back that opened and crawled in. I let everyone else in from there. We were good to go, right! We got a fire going in the big fire pit outside and sat around telling stories.
Until she showed up... She was a Forest Ranger with gun drawn down on us. 100% sure she’d caught some people breaking into a government cabin. What took place over the next hour was us telling our true story and her not believing us. After all, we’d jumped a fence so we could all see why she didn’t.
A couple folks in our group were decided to be the most diplomatic and so they went off with her to show her their ID’s and give the phone number of the BLM officials that gave us access, but the wrong key. Too bad there was no cell service. She looked at the puny key we gave her and said “This doesn’t even look CLOSE to the right key. It’s a mailbox key. The BLM folks wouldn’t make that kind of mistake!”
Here we are being held at the end of a gun. A group of 8 or so who were all armed or had sidearms in our truck, but we didn’t want to make the Forest Ranger any more nervous so we tried to tell her what she would see as we opened the door of the truck to get our ID. After lots of explaining and professing the truth, a little white pickup truck raced to the fence. It was a low level kid from the BLM Office in St. George. “Sorry, SORRY, we gave you the wrong key!”
And with that, our Forest Service Ranger relaxed, put away her sidearm and we all drank some beers around the fire pit. Phew!
...okay, back to the present day!
We took a break in the tall pines before heading onward. We had some ground to cover, but at least we were staying nice and high in elevation tonight! This point was “new to me” so I was extra excited to check it out. With fingers crossed no one would be there we arrived.
Ever drive around a tight parking garage and start to feel your arms getting tired? The trail ahead was like a 1,000 turn parking garage. Half of which were lock to lock turns. We’d stop for a second to rest and chat on the radio about how insane this was laughing out loud. We’d already had a couple long days so we were beat. Every single bush or tree we turned around and around. You can spot the difference in a mining road vs a road made to see a view. The mining road would have uprooted every tree in the way and been fairly straight.
Finally, after an hour of this we popped out of the trees to see this. It was well worth the effort and time.
This spot was epic in every way. We had a nice breeze coming up and out of the canyon so we set up the Alucab Awnings leg and guidewires just so I could stop worrying about breaking our new toy.
This was one of those vistas where you just stare off into the distance. It’s overwhelming. The seperation from the cold river below was so immense it was hard to believe we were just swimming in it the day before.
We were beat, so completely beat. We cracked open the whiskey and shared some with Kevin while his daughter made each of us a painting of the sunset or a monster or was it a hippo. I think it was abstract art.
Honestly, how can you not project feelings on a truck when it brings you to places like this. How can you not love Goose.
“Good night Kevin!” -Tim
“My mouth feels like I ate a Mesquite tree!” -Kevin
“You like it that whiskey, don’t you” -Tim
“Yaaaaaah” -Kevin
Good night, thanks for reading along.
Tim
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