Not a superbloom by any means but much more than I was expecting or perhaps even deserve.
Got shuttled to the trailhead by Janis who runs the Shoshone RV park. She said that the clayish domes south of town are actually ash from when the Yellowstone caldera went off. Another reminder of the precarity of life, and its persistence. Those domes formed 640,000 years ago and are still lifeless. This entire valley must have been a smothered dead zone.
But soil has re-formed between the domes. Add a little water (very little in this case), a few millennia and life returns again: lichens, plants, reptiles, mammals and even a stray hiker now and then. The whole shebang.
Sheephead Mountain and Pass
I made good time up the arroyos leading up to Sheephead Pass. As I climbed the vegetation greened up and flowers soon appeared. There were just a few at first but more and more as I gained elevation approaching the pass.
The last two miles were up an increasingly narrow and sheltered canyon. Bighorn sign was abundant ( the range is called the Ibex Hills). And the flowers became ubiquitous. Not a carpet (except in one spot) but always a flower in view.
The insects became more abundant and then the birds. All were of the small brown sparrow variety and their songs were new to me and exquisite.
A few narrow spots in the canyon offered shade and some fun and easy rock-climbs.
Looking back toward Tecopa and Shoshone
The fun pretty much ended at he top of the pass. It was dry and flowerless. Worse, the route traversed the backside of Sheephead Mountain. Although it looked like easy going on the map it was anything but. The route was a series of hills and gullies, none of them very big but all of them steep and over loose rocky ground that my shoes struggled to grip. Lots of sidehilling. It was only a few miles but seemed endless. Each gully and ridge looked like it would be the last, but there was always one more beyond it.
Looking north from Salsberry Pass
I thought I would make the three miles to my cache at Salsberry Pass in a bit more than an hour but it took three. And I was whipped when I got there.
Loaded up with what I hope is enough water to make it to Sidewinder TH without a six-mile side trip to Willow Springs. I’ve had enough of Mojave spring water.
But 8L water plus 6 days food makes for a heavy pack. I staggered maybe a mile from the cache before I found a sandy arroyo and called it a day. It is a fine campsite with views out over the Greenwater Valley and the Greenwater Range beyond.
Can hear cars out on the highway but hearing a single car approaching when it is miles away makes it feel more remote than total silence. It’s not a stretch, sitting here, to imagine myself the last man on Earth.
Last of the day