Here is the deal, I am waaay behind on posting pics of pretty much everything, but we did a run of about 370 miles this past weekend and I decided to post the pics. Now normally, I spend a fair bit of time editing the pictures for this or that, but this time I decided not to edit them as I take too long to do that, thus not posting them for a long time, so here are my un-edited trip photos.
This is near the start heading down Perkinsville Road. That is Sycamore Canyon off in the distance there:
A short while later we came to the Perkinsville Bridge over the Verde River. This is Lance's Suburban rolling across it:
A short distance after that, we came to a small bridge that crossed this little wash:
This truck is sooo cool:
This truck is cool too (even though it has one of those stinky gas engines in it):
Some scenery viewed off the west side of a shelf road. Probably looking north of Paulden here (just an approximate guess)
Shortly after that we were treated toa HAM radio display by the trail leader Mark. Lance and Brian also contributed valuable information to the demonstration:
Shortly after this, we stopped for lunch and were treated to a tear down of Mark's very impressive first aid pack by our resident ICU RN/wilderness EMT Lance. All of the contents were shown and the pros and cons of each and their uses were discussed. VERY valuable information was presented by Lance and Mark. They dispelled many myths and half-truths about necessary contents for first aid kits.
We saw quite a few nice meadows/praries on the drive. I was surprised at how green everything was up there:
Lookout tower atop Round Mountain:
Nice view to the east off of the tower. Sycamore Canyon:
JD cabin:
A neat old stew can at the cabin site:
After we left here we went over to Pomeroy Tanks. They were a neat series of pools in a small canyon. Unfortunately it started raining a little when we arrived, so I decided to leave the camera in the dry truck. We were not but a few hundred feet down the trail and the rain stopped and I missed the opportunity for some great shots there. Maybe someone else got some?? Anyways, after hiking out to the tanks and back, most of the group rolled out headed to points unknown, but being that Lance and I (and my boy) were far from home and rarely miss a chance for some camping, we headed down the trail looking for a spot to call home for the night. We went down the road a ways (probably a couple miles) and found a real nice spot to set up camp. It was level, had nice views, nobody around, the basic parameters for a good spot. So we set up shop:
When we set up, there was a very slight breeze blowing. It really didn't seem like much, but it was a breeze. Well, once the sun started going down that ever-so-slight breeze blew away and left us with totally still air. Not a problem other than the mosquitos came out in force. Now I come from mosquito country and know how evil those tiny creatures are, but I don't think I have EVER seen mosquitos so thick. My palms were literally covered in blood from swatting them off of me, my boy, out of the air etc. It was ridiculous. Unbelievable. Awful. We tried sticking it out, but it was too much for standard humans to handle. We did a quick tear down and headed down the road to somewhere else. While we were driving to somewhere else we drove past miles and miles of sunflowers:
We eventually found somewhere else and it was a great place:
We hung out by the fire and shut it off later to watch the meteor shower. Got to see a few good ones before retiring to bed. We got up the next morning and headed out to the Lava River Cave:
It is really dark in there and much climbing and balancing is required, so I did not drag my camera with--this time (been thinking about next time...). We hiked/climbed in about half way, seeing some really neat things along the way. We got out of the cave and headed down the trail and aired up when we got to 180. We rolled into Flagstaff and refueled at a Subway, then pointed the trucks down the big hill toward home. On the way we saw a neat spot of rain in the west end of the Verde Valley:
There was a definite beginning and end to it. Pretty neat. We continued down the hill and the air continued to get warmer and warmer until finally metal was too hot to touch and we realized we were back home already.
It was a fantastic trip and the last hurrah before my boy went back to school today.