After driving 234 miles, ignoring the Garmin for the most part because it kept telling us to go this way and that way on goofy little dirt roads--instead, we followed a nicely graded and graveled road until it dead-ended and we had to go back and follow the Garmin--we got a good view of Crystal Mountain.
But first we drove south out of Delta, instead of west as the Garmin instructed, and found Fort Deseret, an adobe fort built during the Black Hawk Indian Wars.
Crystal Peak is a weird little volcanic-ash-and-pebble mountain that is almost more hardened mud than rock. It looks easy and ladder-like to climb, but this stuff breaks off like paper mache, and if your foothold gives way, the drop could be a few hundred feet. The summit is about 7,100 feet.
Often, what looks like a solid rock is hollow underneath.
We reached about 7,000 feet before the route we selected got a little too risky for our blood.
The distant mountains to the west are probably in Nevada.
Speaking of blood, Crystal Mountain is probably equivalent to about 10-grit sandpaper embedded with sharp little rocks for good measure, and the bushes are sturdy little soldiers with steel-needle-like branches--not really a good environment for wearing shorts. I also put my hand back to sit down at one point, or on one point, and punched a little hole in the palm.
This little guy skedaddled when we came by.
This guy decided to hide in plain site until I got within inches of him.
The West Desert is tough on anything living.
But there's also a lot of protected beauty.
And a nice end-of-the-day hot spring, where I'd spend hours with a book if I could.
1 comment:
I like the way you follow the GPS only as a last resort -- good thinking.
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