Keyhole Canyon

Good morning, my friends. We had a good day yesterday...a short, but breathtaking hike, and then plenty of rest and relaxation later in the day. Before we left the RV, I noticed Smitty has a red scratch on his nose. He likes to bully Sadie sometimes, and sometimes she has to put him in his place.

Try that again, Big Boy.

Okay, so with peace established, we headed south from Boulder City. Looking at the image below, you might notice a bright white line running horizontally near the middle of the image.

Several large-scale solar arrays are located here in the Eldorado Valley, forming one of the largest solar hubs in the United States. Key projects include the 802 MW Copper Mountain Solar Facility, the 300 MW+ Techren Solar Project, and the 150 MW Boulder Solar project. It appears there will be more added too. In the image below, you can see more solar panels in the distance. The large dirt area in the foreground appears to be in preparation for more. For now, we saw some motorcyclists out there enjoying the wide open spaces.

We turned off the main highway at Route "S". We had four miles of dirt road to travel before reaching the canyon. (Sorry for the reflections in some of these images…bright sunshine.)

It was a rough road, except for this one mile or so traveling between two rows of power lines. With so much solar power and hydroelectric power, we have a feeling electricity is relatively inexpensive in this area.

We could see the mouth of the canyon as we approached.

This is such a remote hike that not many people travel out here to see it. The rules were simple...mainly, pack it in, pack it out.

Passing through the opening and looking left, we were agape with wonder at these rocky walls. These were probably about 100 feet high.

Looking a little to the right, Mike is there for scale.

Here, two big rocks fell together to form this tunnel. It went all the way through to the rocks on the other side.

And, yikes! I wouldn't have wanted to be standing there when this big rockfall came down.

Here's another big rock wall. The fractures in the rocks were fascinating.

This was a sort of cave. It looks like someone has been camping here, but it would have made a good shelter for indigenous peoples.

Turning around from there, this is a 30 foot dry waterfall. If we'd had our climbing equipment (as if), we could have climbed up here to get to an upper trail. 

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, this was a little confusing when I compared online information with the information in our hiking book. It seems you can reach the upper part of the trail one canyon south of where we were. We turned off on Route "S." If we'd gone a little farther to Route "T," we would have found the upper part of the trail. It would have required rappelling in spots, and, um, I'm not really up for that. 

Here's another look at these amazing rock walls.

I've seen better petroglyphs than these, but I'll give them credit for being some of the oldest I've seen. It's estimated some of these are as much as 1,000 years old. Imagine that.

The desert gold poppies were blooming in abundance.

Here's a close-up.

This next one is Desert Chicory.

It's distinctive for the pink stripes on the undersides of its petals.

My phone tells me this is Chlyismia, a kind of evening primrose.

Heading back had me thinking about the mountains. These are old mountains, taken down by erosion from what might have been loftier heights at one time. The youngest mountains are red in color, indicating the presence of iron and manganese.

These darkest black mountains were formed from ancient volcanic activity, and they are among the oldest mountains in this area.

I was contrasting them with the peaky peaks we saw in Alaska (the image below was taken near Palmer, Alaska), where the mountains are still being pushed up. The sharp peaks indicate younger mountains. And so in less than a year, we've seen extremes in mountain building and decay.

Okay, so that was our day. There was a pretty sunrise this morning. It’s a good way to start any day.

Today we'll have another chill day. I'm fully intending to get out my sewing machine today, and I've encouraged Mike to go ride his bike. I want to make some progress on my Vintage Valentine quilt. If I'm to have it finished by Valentine's Day (not really a goal), then I need to get going. Time's a-wasting.