Talk about a trip you took out to Anza Borrego
Culp Valley and Upper Hellhole Canyon
|
ziphius Posts: 911
4/22/2013
|
One night car camp and rattlesnakefest. Within minutes of parking, we had seen a prairie falcon, which quickly disappeared. Starting with the photo of the 'photo of the trip', shot by Alex near Pena Spring, here is a Vivid Dancer (Argia vivida):
Pena Spring isn't more than 0.5 mile from the camping area near Culp Valley and was providing about 1 gallon per minute. I dumped a liter over my head and it was COLD!
Some morteros in the vicinity. No pottery or flaked stone sightings.
Butterfly shot by Alex:
Alex in a standoff with a rattlesnake:
We did the descent from Pena Spring to the upper reaches of Hellhole Canyon, including some ascents in the direction of The Thimble so that we could scout out a reasonable way down:
Getting downslope wasn't easy:
Getting back up wasn't either, especially having to worry about rattlers at every move (we ended up with only 2 rattler sightings.... we expected a bunch more):
The canyon bottom was choked with plants, sycamores, and cottonwoods, which made any crossing of the canyon impractical given our time limitations.
Within minutes of leaving the campground, Alex spotted a prairie falcon (which might have been the same bird we saw the day before), but alas, it was moving too quickly for photography.
edited by ziphius on 12/2/2014
--
http://www.coyotelearning.org
|
|
|
link
|