The Road to Dripping Springs At Last!!!

Since the holidays, our friends Ron and Sally arrived and we ran Preacher's Pass again from their park.  Another day we went out of this park and ran some fun, rough trails in the Harquahala Mountains.  

Last year with Ron and Sally we tried twice to find the elusive Dripping Springs.  Our first effort ended in a day of frustration and harsh words, as we wandered around in the washes and never did find the right trail.  On our second effort, a day or two later, we finally got to the top of the trail down to the springs but it was too late in the day to run it.  We would have found ourselves coming back in the heavy shade in the late afternoon.  We did the sensible thing, turned around, and said "Next year."
Fast forward a year:  With confidence and high hopes, we started out again to find the springs.  Success!  

The way to the trailhead requires we pass under I-10.  Last year I lost two flags to the culvert so this year we stopped to remove flags.  On the way back, Mike took one of the openings which had sand/gravel washed into the bottom and wound up scraping the roof of his Wolverine.  It was only less than an inch of debris but enough to make the Wolverine too tall for the culvert.

The tenacity of desert plants continues to surprise me.  If you look carefully, you will see a reddish barrel cactus on the cliff face.

Ron and Sally:  how do we get back from here?

There is a very narrow canyon which leads away from Dripping Springs, away from our direction of travel coming in.

Note the photographer's fingers in the mirror.

Ummmm...one little problem.  Once we cleared the canyon and turned east, for a while we had no bleeping idea where we were, GPS units not withstanding.  It was growing later in the afternoon than any of us liked.  Fortunately, Ron got us to the right road for a REALLY SPECTACULAR RIDE back across the mountains to return to the park.

Do  you see the tiny little thread of a trail in the distance?  We came all the way up:  steep, rocky, tilted in spots.  An altogether great ride.

Ron and Sally have a 38 foot toy hauler pulled by their big truck.  They have an interesting way to transport their Polaris when they are unhitched from the toy hauler.  See below.

They are staying at a park down the road so to ride together, either they must haul their rig to us or we trailer our rigs down to their park.

On another topic, we decided to find a larger trailer we can leave in this park permanently.  The weather here in the winter is substantially nicer than in Deming.  We have had one day of rain and most days don't require a jacket.  Today we are waiting for the owners of the trailer to deliver it to us.  Then our work starts, moving items from the Lance to the Cottage.  (It is 40 feet vs the 22 feet in the Lance.)  Our site had to be re-graded to accommodate the longer trailer so we moved the Lance down to an empty site for a few days.