Found: Skull Rock and Spiral Labyrinth

I am not sure what was going on with the voice directions within Google maps as I tried to find Skull Rock yesterday.  It took me to the wrong spot and the pictures I posted before with a classic example of pareidolia... where one sees shapes and rocks and such that don't exist.

Anyways, Skull Rock is actually 2 mi further into Kofa Queen Canyon than where the voice directions took me yesterday.

Enroute to Kofa Queen Canyon Rd

Look for this balancing rock...

Skull Rock

Looking back down to the valley

Rock formations along the way

View of the valley traversed by Palm Canyon Road

A brief stop at the Spiral Labyrinth depicted on Google Maps.  It's alongside Palm Canyon Road, not far from my campsite.

Stuff left behind, a bit of it is just trash...some people

Just can't help sucking....

I was sitting inside the RV in the afternoon just watching the skyline, and noticed what looked like a small square opening on the side of Signal Peak:

I am sure it's another case of pareidolia.  However, the pillars structure behind the portion containing the "opening" also drew my curiosity.  To the point where I was beginning to plan a hike, no roads, to a location to get a closer look at it. Or even, to do the 3 and 1/2 mi hike to the top of Signal Peak to get a look at it from above.

Luckily, I found a usable image of it on alltrails.com:

Source: alltrails.com

Now, with the need to get a better view fulfilled, it saved me some hiking!

Evening light at the campsite 

A wind advisory is forecasted for tomorrow, Wednesday, February 18.  Depending on weather and sunshine availability, it'll decide for me whether to check out Palm Canyon.

Boondocking in the Kofa NWR

The 14 day LTVA permit I purchased expired today.  So I displaced a day earlier than planned.  ( I had lost track of what day the 15th ) fell on.

Note: you can "check out" the morning after the permit expires, and still use the facilities.

Since tomorrow is Presidents Day, the water points wouldn't be running I found out after I'd dumped tanks.  So it's just as well I displaced today.

The next few days were forecasted as cooler so decided to only displace a short distance to wait out the cooler weather.

Less than 20 miles to Palm Canyon Road which leads you into the Kofa NWR.  Still lots of places to camp and I selected one that didn't have any other campers too close to it.  I also chose the side of the road upwind of it as conditions were quite dusty.  This was specially true when OHVAs raced but, way above posted speed limits, raising huge dust clouds.

After setting up camp, I rested for a bit.  After lunch, I tried out the bino/cameraphone adapter:

1x zoom with bino

1x no bino

1x zoom with bino 

1x zoom with bino

3x zoom no bino

1x zoom no bino

The tallest point in the mountains above is Signal Peak.  There's apparently a 3 and 1/2 mile trail to the top of it but I am not sure I will be doing that.  The 0.9 mile trail into nearby Palm Canyon had me huffing and puffing when I did it years ago!

Later, around 3:30 or so, I decided to check out Skull Rock, which is located in the Kofa Queen Canyon Road.  The roads are packed gravel and are very stony in points. The road to Queen Canyon was even worse which kept my pace down. Lots and lots of big stones and fist size rocks, that demanded close attention.

Once I reached the point where Google maps said that it was the location of Skull Rock, I started looking around.  Skull Rock must be one of those formations that is named by someone with very active imagination I think. I think I found it but not sure. 

February 16 update:  below pics are not of Skull Rock, did some googling today and will ride out again tomorrow to find it  

Heading back out of Queen Canyon, the light returned briefly through the ever increasing clouds of the afternoon. I may have to check out this road again tomorrow or the next day in better light and earlier in the day. 

Sunset was ok:

Mountain Views and. short Visit by Chris Z.

 Thursday, February 12

The day started cloudy but cleared up nicely before mid-morning.

The lighting in the morning led to more practice on using the adapter for binos for my phone camera:

Cunningham Mountain and it's telecom towers:

1x zoom with binoculars 

3x zoom with binos

After lunch, I decided to see how close I could get to this nearby unnamed mountain:

Bino shot from campsite from a few days ago

Google maps didn't easily show the smaller trails so I ended up taking Pipeline Road and from there, a power line road and eventually down seeming unmarked trails.  Getting ever closer, going slow due to loose rocks / gravel / dirt that could make things interesting if you did not pay attention.

Using the rock formation as a guide, I eventually got pretty close:

I think the houses in the distance are in La Paz Valley

South of Quartzsite 

I took BLM Road 0061 (yep, found a marked tail junction) all the way back to civilization.  I missed the turnoff for La Posa South LTVA and ended up in La Posa North.  No problem, it's a short ride from it to the right LTVA and my campsite within.

Last views of today's mountain view destination:

Realizing that one can expand the last pic to get what's shown in the one before; which one is more attractive to your eye?

Friday, February 13

Chris Z of Blazeourway showed up in the afternoon to talk to the Bowen Custom folks re his new truck's flatbed that was made by Bowen.

Chris had bought it second hand and wanted to ensure it was installed right by the seller.  Fortunately, the Bowen team checked it out and declared it ready for travels.  The camper, by Alaskan, will be ready in about 3 weeks and Chris and Lori will drive their truck to WA to have Alaskan install the camper.

There's a Truck Camper Rally going on at Quartzsite, which explained Bowens presence in relative proxity to Chris and Lori's home in Meadview 

Here's the Bowen demo rig, quite the campus machine eh?

Chris talking to the Bowen team about the rig and some future work for his own truck 

Inspection completed, it was time for a drink by a small campfire back at camp: