Venturing off-trail in search of "Sara," come hissy rattlesnake or Dinosaur treas-ahaaa

Every other day in the Klondike Camp is reserved for hiking. This is necessary in order to give our bottoms a break from ever-so-slender bike saddles, which nowadays are more invasive than a wretched colonoscopy. 



Note: For "In-Focus" photos double click to view in album format. (Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr)

North Klondike Trailhead: The Klondike is known to have thousands upon thousands of dinosaur tracks. Most are step-like depressions in the sandstone and bear little resemblance to footprints of the once enormous, long extinct creatures than roamed around here when it was almost tropical, with ferns and water and lush vegetation. 

Bobbie and I have been zooming over these little depressions on bike rides and hikes, never the wiser. Thus the main emphasis of this hike was to find tracks that actually looked as if they were made by dinosaurs instead of common erosional forces of nature. A secondary emphasis was to stray off-trail a bit in search of mining ruins, using old four wheel drive roads and wash bottoms, sandstone, cow tracks, and/or any other means of locomotion that does not bust Govie's precious Cryptobiotic Crust.  

From the parking area we hiked 500 feet up a trail marked "Dinosaur Tracks." Cool. Must be in the right place. Sure enough we found depressions in sandstone, most filled with silt from runoff. A sign explained that some of these tracks were made by a three-toed, 18 ton, meat-eating machine over 150 million years ago. Not impressed, still not convinced. Onward.  

Not impressed... 

Moving upward, the next sign forewarning of certain death and/or destruction from Radon, Radiation, and Explosives. We continued, hiking up a 4WD road that was more a ladder of ledges, finally arriving at ruins of an old mine of some sort. Feeling a tingle in my feet, I wondered what a Geiger counter might read. What's a few minutes of exposure... 

We walked over to inspect a concrete basin. It was partitioned off and sloped for drainage to pipes that I assumed were there to collect and drain water. The interesting thing was that each separate basin was filled with scrapes shredded metal, well rusted, as you can see. I have no idea why, or what the purpose of the basin was, or even what they were mining for. We spied some tanks and more basins on the hill side and went to take a look-see.

Can't resist Tripod Rocks... 

Some PVC pipe and a couple of concrete catch basins... 

Someone laid stone between these rocks.

There appeared to have been a wooden shelter/abode? where the rocks had been placed.

We continued up, headed for a ridge and more tanks on top. It provided good views of Salt Valley and into Arches National Park.

We wandered over to the tanks, one of which was a home-made mixing chamber.  Some crafty, ingenious guy used the frame of a vehicle to bridge the tank, then used a transmission, drive line, and rear end assembly to drive wooden mixing paddles.

Hey Boss, hows this? Got three speeds plus a reverse... 

The long pipe above had an auger... something to move a slurry or thicken material uphill. What? Why? Don't understand.

But here is something I do understand... far views into lonely country. 

Onward, in search of Dinosaur tracks.
Till then, 
Peace out.
mark and bobbie... wandering red rock on bikes and on foot.