Our Big Night Out!

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We've received an invitation to dinner this week, by way of Slim, down to meet the new crew at the more or less third closest neighbor's place. Who is the closest neighbor really depends on what washes are running and uncrossable on a given day. On Wednesday, these folks were our third closest neighbors.

Given that I hadn't found a practical occasion to leave our immediate canyon since last August, this was truly an event for me - a pleasant adventure to see at least the next ten miles that lay beyond that confine. As Phlegm Fatale recently suggested, it might be a helpful blog post to address the matter of transitioning from formerly complete 'civilization' to nearly complete primitive solitude. It does appear to involve several things on a number of different levels. I will start ruminating on that one.
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While far from perfect, the roads have dried up considerably in the last week or so. The big question was if our creek crossing was navigable. Amazingly, the road conditions seem to be addressed fairly well when a drilling rig is in the area. We got to the crossing and found that someone had arranged to dump several loads of larger rock into it to form a firm crossing base (above). While this side was a little soft, there were no surprises waiting half-way across or on the other side. This is the same crossing which previously inspired, in part, the "Chaos, Rains Supreme" series.
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Other than for the lightly overcast skies as we set out, this trip felt like a good one to my instincts so I was looking forward to it immensely by now and to meeting some new faces in the canyon lands. We were on our way!
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The main wash (shown above) was still channeling off snow melt and remained a complete mire of treacherous mud bog so we took the infamous 'goat path' on our side of it. I was overwhelmed that it had transformed into a near super-highway since our last joint encounter with it. Not to be snarky again, of course, but it would appear that road conditions greatly improve when priority gas development and profit are involved.
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It was largely a lovely and smooth ride, in fact. It still might not accommodate two way traffic well but it was splendid in relative terms. In this photo, you can how the path dips down and disappears to the right into a cut, re-emerges at a climb, drops out of sight to the left and sharply snaps up to the right again. This is pretty much its typical course over the three mile stretch to the bridge.
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Here (above) is the main wash which escorts the goat path but at some 30 to 50 feet below and shown here in a benign and promising state but still completely uncrossable. Its broad sandy bed hints at the full expanse of its realm when the waters run full and wild. It looks as innocuous here as a motionless boa constrictor but therein lies its secret to bringing sudden death upon the gormless ever since man first roamed these lands.
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I will stop here since I have burned up a considerable amount of daylight generator time already and it is now sensibly time to shut down until night falls again. I prefer to compose our stories while it is fully day time and I still have a goodly share of energy about me but wear on the generator and fuel use are a necessary factor in the balance, always.
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