2009-11-21 36 -107

Sat 21 Nov 2009 in 36,-107: 36.1163646, -107.8877227 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

A broad, shallow wash a few miles north of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

Participants

• Redaragorn and 3 yr old son

Plans

I had a lot going on today again, but I wanted to get out and catch the Bloomfield hash to complete my Minesweeper achievement. The hash looked to be on fairly accessible BLM land, so I was fairly certain we could do it expeditiously. I figured if we got off plenty early, we'd be back in time to get all the errands run. Let's hope it works...

Expedition

We were up later playing last night, but I rolled out of bed at 5:30 anyway to pull stuff together and get the car ready. The boy is generally a very early riser, but when he wasn't up by almost 6:30, I went ahead and pulled him out of bed and put him straight into the carseat. And we were off. The trip out US 550 went smooth enough, although I was a little worried because temps were in the 20s and 30s. Brrrr. We brought jackets, but not heavy winter coats. Thankfully, the rising sun had moderated the temperature a bit by the time we got closer to our destination. We turned off onto the main road out to Chaco Culture National Historical Park, and drove almost the whole way to the park before taking off on a much-less-visited track. We drove for a few miles, and I realized just how little resemblance the roads on the ground bore to the roads on the map, which didn't bode well. After a little bit of wandering, we finally found what looked like the right road, although I'm not so sure it was BLM land. There happened to be a house right by what looked like the closest approach the road made to the hash. Hmm. I drove a quarter mile south to park the car, then set off in the sage to reach the wash a half mile away. We did have to cross a barbed wire fence at one point, but I didn't see signs anywhere.  :-) Yes, I was looking for them--fences are par for the course around here. We got down near the hash, and the toddler has a BLAST of a time because I gave him his own GPS that he was using to follow along as well. Way cool. His new catch-phrase is "We're looking for the red dot, daddy?" After our pictures at the hash, we trudged back up the hill out of the wash and followed the fenceline back to the car. As I ducked under the barbed wire to cross back over to the other side of the fence, I made the mistake of kneeling and putting my hand on a small, inconspicuous prickly pear. Ouch. I got most of the small spines out, but a few worked their way in and were smarting for a while. Devious little plants. Ah well. We got back to the car and on our way soon enough. Mission accomplished.

Track

The GPS track can be found here.

Pictures

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  Blurry GPS coordinates.

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  The boy and I--at least *I'm* grinning.

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  Setting the scene...lots of sagebrush around.