Got off work early on Friday, so it was home to swiftly finalize packing before Dad showed up to pick me up. Off to the store for supplies, then met up with Puzzleman and BigTruckCrew. Off to Dixie Valley!!
In all, we had Dad's new Jeep, BTC's Orange Scout being towed by Puzzleman's truck, and the Gold truck pulling the toy hauler. Camp was located at the far north end of the valley near an old ranch (as is almost everywhere in that valley) tucked up against the mountain in a gravel clearing around the corner from a corral.
Once we set up the camper and the tents, we headed out for a shakedown up the Steam Shovel trail to grab the cache up there and see how things were going to be for the weekend. Nice and bumpy trail heading up and I almost would have had a KILLER video of Dad's rig crawling down a large boulder. But alas, I hit the wrong button.
Back at camp, the night's meal was a Dutch Over pizza prepared by BTC while Puzzleman and Dad set up the scopes. The only light in the area was from the soon to set moon and the geothermal well to the far north of us. We were able to see Capella, a binary star, and four of Jupiter's moons in the scope (P'man's wasn't aligned during the day and the sight's batteries died making alignment at night difficult), as well as a full bright Milky Way stretched from one end of the valley to the other.
The next morning after breakfast we set out southward to find an old mine against the hillside, a beautiful slot canyon (I LOVE LITTLE BOX CANYON!), and head up the Bobcat trail to find a few caches up in the mountains, Job Crossing and especially Cabin in the Stillwaters, that I have been wanting for a long time! All were found, pictures taken, and we were off back to camp to settle in for a hearty steak dinner and more stargazing (yay, got the sight working and now we had a computerized scope tracking anything we wanted!)
Sunday morning we set out early to head up Cottonwood Canyon and the goal for the weekend, Bolivia or Bust. We made it to within 2 miles of the cache, before a *large* boulder stopped both rigs in their tracks. Even BTC, our skilled off-road guide, couldn't coax the Scout to defy gravity and make his way up the rock. So we hiked the remaining distance. I love my Keen sandals! While the guys hopped back and forth across the creek, I just walked right through it! HA! However, the cache and the site were both a let down. The site only had to buildings, one stone the other wood, and the cache was soaked and destroyed. Still, the canyon made up for the disappointment at the end.
Headed back and broke down camp before returning to town and a delish treat of shakes and malts as we all said farewell for this trip. Totally totally awesome weekend and I am so glad that we got to hang out before the weather starts creeping it's way back towards winter.
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| Dixie Valley Adventure |
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