It's About the (RV) Journey....: Bucktank Draw and Birthday Arch.............

Okay, we talked to the ranger again, and found another hike we could actually get to with the car. (Around here, its good to have a jeep or truck....4WD and high clearance... otherwise you are limited in the roads you can travel). We didn't have to drive down a dirt/gravel road to get to this trailhead, as it was right off the highway. It looked to be in the middle of nowhere (well, it was). The trail starts by walking down a sandy wash (draw) for about a mile or so before spotting an arch. Sounded good to us!

heading into the sandy wash

ohhhh this will be a good workout! walking through this deep sand!

the walls of the wash were pretty neat

Walking through sand is fun for the first five minutes or so, and after that its quite a slog making progress. Thankfully, there was slickrock here and there to walk on, which gave us somewhat of a break, if only for a minute.

much easier walking on the slickrock

heading for the slickrock...makes the walking much easier

This wash was bordered on both sides by vast desert areas with cows grazing. We were a little surprised to see cow pies in the wash though! Don't ask me what I'd do if cows started wandering up the wash. In most places, the rock walls were too difficult for a human to scale...though obviously those sure-footed cows made it down somehow. Always an adventure!

pretty desert blooms

The going was a bit slow because of the sand, but we enjoyed the little things like the blooming flowers along the rocks, and well, the rocks! Slogging through the sand, we felt like we were walking across the Sahara, when up ahead, we saw water! Or did we?

surprising amount of trees and bushes randomly growing

is that water up ahead?

hhmmm...yes, and an obstacle as well

We had a few obstacles to get around every once in a while. We had to scramble over the rocks to get to the next level. Some obstacles were easier than others. One was particularly difficult, and the best way to get to the next level was to go around, instead of climbing up and over. The paths on the sides that led around were very narrow, and a little steep for me. Poor Tom...again had to lend me a hand to get through that part of the hike. Ugh!

scrambling up the "pour-off" rocks

another obstacle

walked around this one by using the tiny path on the right....yes, I needed some hand-holding here!

At some points on the hike, we also encountered trees....which translates to shade! Yippee!! And of course, there were more areas of slickrock, to give us a much needed break from the sand.

not seeing any arch

total slickrock here....nice!

okay...another obstacle

doable

not so bad

where is that arch?

its just lovely in the shade!

After about an hour, we thought for sure we must have missed the "birthday arch". We came to our last obstacle...the one that made us turn around. The rocks were too high to scale, and Tom checked out going around the top...but there was very steep, sideways rocks that he thought I we couldn't handle. Not only that, but he still didn't see the arch! Did we miss it somehow?

is this another obstacle?

this is a big one...there's a pool of water at the bottom, and also on the rocks a bit higher up

water was up on the ledge as well, but the pool at the bottom was a bad starting point

looking around for another way up

Tom exploring another way to get around-do you see the arch?

No big deal...we were getting a good workout with some interesting scenery. Our eyes spotted some interesting spots on a rock, and we were wondering what it was. I still have to look that up.

time to turn around-too bad...

what is that on the rock?

little hard black spots....some kind of lichen or mineral?

have to look that up!

very interesting

The view walking back was really nice, except for the drop-offs, which seemed more pronounced for some reason. Didn't seem as bad climbing up. Oh boy! We managed though, one of us (guess who) more graceful than the other. Ha!

watch your step up there! Remember the obstacle we climbed up? Well....there's the dropoff

the view was really nice! But it seems like a pretty high drop off from here

We were enjoying the scenery as we walked by, and took note of the flora, even in this high desert area.

the rocks and flowers were really nice

we had several obstacles on the way up...here's another

a nice refreshing water break in the shade :)

Before we knew it, it was time to walk along the path along the edge of the "cliff" again, as it was too steep to make our way scrambling down the rock. Again, Tom had to take me by the hand. Wasn't he surprised when I totally stopped and froze....I guess he was so busy concentrating on getting through the path that he didn't hear it! Rattle Rattle Rattle! OMG! Of all the places on this trail, did we have to run into a rattlesnake on this tiny path on the side of the "cliff" with no where else for us to go? I think its a prairie rattlesnake....need to look that up too.