The sun's early rays bathed the desert and distant mountains in golden light.
Steve loves trying out new routes, so the day's plan was for a loop ride starting from the Brush Corral trailhead. Brush corrals are numerous in the area. Cowboys of old piled up dead juniper tree trunks and branches in a circular fashion to create a corral for collecting cattle. The trailhead I refer to is near the Hans Flat Ranger station, with a relatively new brush corral (maybe only 50-75 years old) at the end of an infrequently used two-track.
From there, we rode across the desert to the vicinity of Cowboy Cave, into the Spur Fork of Horseshoe Canyon to the Blue-eyed Princess, and back through Lower Pasture and Matt Warner's outlaw camp , down into Horseshoe Canyon and out again to the trailhead. Other than an unexpected fence that forced us to take a 2 mile detour, it all went pretty well.
Here's one of the "gnarly parts" I didn't take a picture of on our last trip to the Princess. That time, we followed another rider straight up the steep shaley slope, probably not the wisest move. This trip, we traversed to the top. Much safer and easier.
This pool in a sandstone cut provided a nice drink for the horses. You may notice my new stylin' headgear. I finally figured out a way to wear a helmet and not get sunburned. Save brain and skin, that's my new motto.
Case caddis fly larva roamed the bottom of the pool. In a month or so, tadpoles will swim here, too. This indicates moisture, if not actual surface water, is present year round.
The Princess panel was still impressive, and easy to find now that we knew where to look.
Some people call this the Blue-eyed Jesus and describe a beard. I do see a dark line down the figure's chest. Maybe it was once part of a beard. What do you think? Is it a he or a she, god-like or royal?
On the return part of the loop, we explored a few springs that are unnamed on the topo maps.
This small pool is below Matt Warner's outlaw camp, which I posted about
here.
We climbed to the spring's source and found a much larger pool. We hereby dub it Blue Spring, because of the bluish tint of the sandstone surrounding it.
A little further along, we came to this small stream, where Daisy played on an earlier ride. (We left her at the trailer this time, because the day was warm and it was a long way between waterholes.) We climbed into the box canyon to find where the water seeps from the contact zone between porous Navajo sandstone above and impervious Kayenta sandstone below.
The pool formed here is a generous one for desert country. Since the spring is unnamed, our faithful lab, lover of water everywhere, gets the honor. We call it Ms. Daisy Spring.
As we rode away from the spring, this little bull rose from his resting place under a pinyon and stared at us. He didn't seem inclined to leave, so we gave him a wide berth.
Besides a few errant cattle that aren't supposed to be in this canyon, we also saw a small herd of donkeys, a coyote, a squirrel-like critter, rabbits, and a few early insects. Only an occasional flower bloomed, but it's early yet. The leaves are just coming out on bushes and trees.
We dragged into camp about 5 PM, having completed 26 difficult canyon country miles and 2500 feet of altitude gain and loss. Both humans and horses had earned their supper, don't you think?
