Tag Archives: rocks

Writing Prompts

Rock Gallery of the Geodes I Found

I cleaned, brushed, and sprayed off the rocks and geodes we found yesterday, so here is a preliminary viewing of the gallery. I don’t know if they are too fragile to tumble, I’ll check with Karl. But if so, at least I found a few great rocks to shine up along with the geodes. The big ones I’ll have to take a hammer to to reduce the size. Carefully, so I don’t break the geode.

Those are the best of the bunch, the rest are just pretty rocks I hope to tumble later. I think the day was a success!

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Writing Prompts

Hiking Muggin’s Mountain

In the mouth of a nearby cave.

The cave pictured here is at a location near the mountain peak that was our destination, but the hike up to Muggin’s Mountain had several more, though none that big in the area we searched.

I wanted to go all the way to the highest point, but my knee was grouchy because of the cold front that came in last night I guess. To prevent accident and to keep me able to enjoy the rest of our time here this week, we decided at a certain point that we had done enough climbing for the day.

We wanted to hike this particular mountain because we pass it frequently and it looks like a crown from the highway. We just had to see it, had to find a way up there. So in our true fashion, we took off and explored on our own this morning, finally finding the correct hiking path that actually becomes a BLM park (7,100 acres worth) yet we were only interested in the crown-looking part. Had we looked up Muggin’s Mountain on the internet, like I did when we got home, we would have found exact driving directions. Where’s the fun in that? 🤣 We had so much more fun (and possibly did some trespassing) our way though! As a matter of fact, during part of our driving search, we were on some lands used by the military as a training ground for munitions. Signs warned that there was unexploded ordinance, yet we just didn’t stray from the path paved by Jeeps and/or ATVS that came before us. After regrouping and doubling back however, we found the correct way up there.
From other vantage points on nearby peaks, it kind of looks like a toad crouching. Use your own imagination as I take you through the photo journey of our hike.The first group of pictures is from the first set of hills we climbed before arriving at the BLM area.

Enjoy!

The crown-type peak on the right was the destination.
Our view as we climb a steep hill.
The crown is over this range but we had to leave this are a drive around.
Over the edge is a sheer drop into this gorgeous valley. The cave is off to the left .
This is the cave I’m pictured in at the top of the post.
Beautiful views atop this peak though.
Here the rocks were all interesting, some looking just like petrified wood. I took a few shots as examples.
Enlarged, you can see the striations.
A different clump of it.
Smaller but better example.
I left all these alone, as there weren’t any small enough rocks to take back that really represent petrified wood. On BLM land, however, you can take as many rocks as you want.
Driving past fields of kale as we searched for the way to get up to Muggin’s Mt.
On top of a hill in the (possibly) off-limits area.
The other set of mountain ranges over there are what you cross through on your way to Yuma.
Finally arriving at the destination. Now to pick a path!

We parked here and started walking toward what looked like the easiest way up. We were wrong. After climbing up a hill, we took some pics and carefully made our way back down. That part might have aggravated my knee a bit, the shale and rocks were loose, gravelly, and hard to walk sideways on. In fact, Dave beefed it coming down, but was not too injured. It was a slow fall, but a rough enough landing that he remarked, “That’s gonna leave a mark.”

We could see our Jeep from our vantage point before the climb down.

Here, we decided to walk the path through the river bottom, taking in some beautiful sights, interesting rock formations that years of water and other elements have created.

One more from atop the hill first.
Dave posing for me as we explored part of the River bottom.
Just a cool pic of being at the lowest point.
Small caves are back up in there, but I’d had enough climbing for the day.
Embedded in the River bottom, such a cool formation. All the cliffs through here looked like this.
Another awesome example.
Headed back in the right direction, I wanted to go all the way, but my knee (and Dave) advised against it.
More caves in the cliffs.
A close-up of the trail and peak. Maybe we will finish the hike up next week.
Enlarged, I could swear I spotted mountain goats watching us. We definitely saw other hikers.
The one rock I took, I liked the striations.

Believe it or not, this rock was actually picked up in the first area we stopped, before we got to Muggin’s Mountain Wilderness.

I was going to use the gallery but figured each picture needed an explanation. Also, I don’t like the way my pictures come up in the editor. I wanted them in order. So, slow as the process is, I chose to display them like I did instead. I hope you enjoyed the trip as much as I did. I’ve already used some balm on my knees and taken a dose of Tylenol as a precaution. Still, I’m pretty sure I’ll be a little sore tomorrow! We did a good bit of walking and climbing but unfortunately not at a pace conducive to much fat burning. Darn my knees! Oh well, time to lay off the bread again I suppose. 😁

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