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| Lone Grapevine Spring |
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| Petroglyph Found near Mud Spring II (Perhaps interpretted: "The spring flows on the right side of the peaked ridge above.") |
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| Hiking with a View of Escarpment and Cottonwood Valley |
Lone Grapevine Spring was a very popular hike this morning as twenty-five club members arrived at the Late Night Trailhead on Highway 160 to begin. With Chris in the lead, we found our way across the desert heading in the direction of the Red Rock Canyon NCA escarpment. (Windy Peak to be precise!) To our right, we could see the full length of Cottonwood Valley. The morning started very cloudy but it wasn't long before the sun came out and burned the moisture away.
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| Hiking in Cottonwood Valley |
The Late Night Trailhead is a very popular trailhead for bikers. Therefore, the trails we used to cross the desert were smoothed bike trails.
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| Heading Toward Windy Peak |
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| Arriving at Lone Grapevine Spring |
We dipped in and out of a few washes and noticed cars parked at the inner trailhead used for climbing Windy Peak from the front side. (That's a strenuous hike!) However, our hike today was an extremely pleasant easy to moderate hike. Leaving the bike trails, we crossed one more wash and came to the Lone Grapevine Spring area; a beautiful natural venue where there are dark colored conglomerate boulders and cholla at the base of Windy Peak.
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| Gathering at Lone Grapevine Spring Area |
While others took a small break, the writer hiked on around the left side of the fence and captured the first photo of this entry.
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| Crossing Over to Mud Spring Area |
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| Petroglyphs at Mud Spring |
We continued hiking north around the base of Windy Peak on an interesting rocky trail and came to the water trough being filled by a long black rubber hose coming from Mud Spring above. The water is needed for the wildlife (i.e. burros, bighorn, coyotes and mountain lions) that remain in this area. The hike turns up the hill here where we followed along the water hose to Mud Spring II. This is where we started seeing the petroglyphs written in the boulders by native peoples of very long ago.
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| Mud Spring II |
Some of the drawings were also made as recently as when this area was settled by the early Mormons. There are drawings of the Mormon cowboys and a covered wagon. (Although, we couldn't find the covered wagon today! ... Probably just missed it.)
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| 2011 Collage |
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| Taking a Break in the Petroglyph Area |
In 2011, the writer took many photos of different petroglyphs here and arranged them in collages seen in this entry. Today, the search continued and she found one new drawing seen in the second photo. With each visit, the search expands during our long break in this area. Remember to leave what you see and take only photographs!
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| 2011 Collage |
Today, there were a handful of hikers who wandered around on their individual searches.
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| 2011 Collage |
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| Hiking Down Along Mud Spring Pipe |
After the break, Chris led us back to the cars on a varied route. The return route was a little more straight forward and the difference in route began at the water trough. These trails are easy on the feet and knees with the only more difficulty being the 5 mile distance. By the time we finished the hike, the weather had turned gorgeous! Great morning among friends!
5 miles; 700 feet elevation gain; 2.75 hours
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| Water Trough fed from Mud Spring |
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| Twenty-Five Hikers |
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