The Palm Trees of Palm Canyon

Today's sunrise was pretty good:

The whole morning was overcast and windy, with a high of only 68°F in the afternoon, it wasn't the most inviting weather!

Around 2:30 pm or so though, the clouds cleared out enough to allow the sun to shine through and make me decide to try the hike into Palm Canyon.

I rode Yagi the 5.7 mi to the trailhead for Palm Canyon, I'd seen one hiker coming out and I had the place to myself until I was done taking pictures.  The hike itself is not hard but it is uphill most of the way, with lots of loose rocks and a narrow trail, I was huffing and puffing but not as bad as I remember the last time I did this. 

Palm Canyon Trailhead 

It's only about 0.9 miles and then one comes to a small sign that points off to the left and up. It's a good thing to sign is there because the palm trees are easy to miss if one is not really looking closely. 

I set up the tripod and mounted the binos with the camera phone adapter to them. Here's some of the shots that turned out. The handheld shots were too blurry to publish so I am glad I brought the tripod. 

1x optical zoom + binos

3x optical zoom + binos

6x digital zoom with binos

The process remains fiddly when the tripod is involved. Especially since the tripod I travel with is not as stable or as fine in terms of controls as the big tripod that I left at home. 

Still, the images came out pretty good as long as you don't blow them up too much when viewing them. 

This is the best I could do with a real camera back in December of 2017:

Back at Yagi, I geared up as a couple showed up in a Jeep to do the hike.  I rode back to the campsite with no issues, broke down all the outside equipment and packed it away. I will be displacing to the Gila Bend area tomorrow.

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: