Day 22 - Apache Trail and Lake

Three weeks into my trip I've already crossed the 3,000 mile mark. I will likely do more than 20,000 miles in this Dodge Grand Caravan before the trip ends in October! Driving 1,000 miles a week is better than it would seem though because the roads I travel are mostly backroads and tend to be surrounded by mountain vistas all the time.

After waking up late after a tough trail yesterday, I did some chores: practiced setting up my tarp (trickier than a tent to setup but very light), fixed the air pressure in my tires (I bought an electrical air pump that plugs into cig lighter) and cleaned up the van inside. I then drove to Flagstaff to do some laundry! Highlight of trip.. not, but the first laundry in three weeks because I rinse each day's clothing every night.

Needing to be at the Aravaipa Canyon on Sunday night and having one more hike at the Superstitions left on my list, I decided to drive back down to the Tonto National Forest, near the Superstitions, east of Phoenix. I took the scenic route by Roosevelt Lake formed by a pretty dam and south to Apache Lake, a scenic lake on my "maybe" list. This required driving a dozen miles on a historic well-graded dirt road called the Apache Trail (you can see the road in the 2nd pic). After arriving to Apache Lake I decided to camp for the night there instead of driving at dark on the windy dirt road. Some pics from the day.

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Day 82 - Yellowstone to Montana

My alarm sounded at 5:30am, a time early enough for me to arise before someone found me secretly camping. The geyser prediction said Grand at 6:15am so I set out toward it. I ran into geyser gazer Jim there and he said it likely erupted at 4:30-- missed it. Early morning eruptions are hard to predict as someone needed to have seen the previous overnight eruption in order to make a prediction. I walked on toward Artemesia, an unpredictable geyser at the far corner of the basin. I had seen her erupt from a mile away and wanted a closer inspection. The early morning setting was momentous, yet I didn't see a geyser erupt up close until Grand at 10:30. Then Sawmill erupted with its twirling thirty foot action (pic). The only remaining geyser left to experience on my mental list was Beehive up close. With a predicted window of 810 to 1210, I arrived at 1030 and waited until 1pm, before giving up. The sun was hot, I had read the geyser book cover to cover, and while seeing e...

Day 78 - Yellowstone Old Faithul Geysers

See Old Faithful, Grand, Lion and Beehive geysers erupt in 60 seconds: http://youtu.be/tv7BPXW4x5g This morning was one of the most exciting mornings of my trip. It started off when I decided to take a long solo hike through the geyser field, leaving at 630am. Mist was still covering this dense geyser field as I walked from geyser to hot spring (20% of the world's active geysers reside here in this one square mile area). Following a boardwalk, so not to get burned, I saw a man sitting on the boardwalk staring at an empty geyser hole. I asked him if he worked for the park service and he responded no-- he was an amateur geyser gazer-- he watched the geysers and recorded eruption times. He mentioned that we were quote "entering the window for Grand" -- geyser gazer speak for Grand geyser is about to go off. I walked a short ways to Grand and waited, one of a few at first and then one of a few dozen as a quick hour passed. The Geizer Gazer, Jim, instructed me on how to wa...

Day 104 - Glacier to Vancouver

The hike up Balu Pass was supposed to be fairly easy, beautiful and dotted with waterfalls, but when I talked to the park ranger and learned that Vancouver was an eight hour drive away, I decided to skip Balu and drive west. I left behind this pretty view. And drove many hours through pristine mountains, fewer and fewer snow-capped ones the further west I drove. Some of the valleys were flooded to make reservoirs, leaving scenic sights. I eventually made it to Vancouver and drove right on through to Point Roberts USA, a five mile by five mile coastal land just below the 49th parallel and thus in the USA. The park ranger had suggested this as a good place to camp but being late of the Thursday night before the Fourth of July there were no spots available. I drove around instead and stopped at a forested coastal park. After ten minutes of walking I came to my first grand Pacific view with Mount Baker 60 miles east. The San Juan Islands and Orca Islands could also b...

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