DWTH Day 46: Pinto Mountains Wilderness

Daily Miles: 22.0, Total Miles: 712.1

I got an Uber out to where I left off on Amboy Road. The first order of business was retrieving my food cache that I buried near a wash just up Ironage Road from Hwy 62. I must say that burying my food caches in Opsaks has worked very well except for momentary panic when I don’t find it right away. I have had no damage and it really beats having to return to pick up an empty paint bucket. The fact that my caching trip was close to my start date helped minimize exposure and potential damage.

I quickly started a gradual climb into the Pinto Mountains which had several prospects, small-scale mining and even miner’s ‘petroglyphs” dating back to the late 1800’s.

A combination of primitive roads and x-country travel got me into the Pinto Mountains Wilderness and my first wildlife guzzler in this mountain range. A year ago, this guzzler was reported as near empty. I was pleasantly surprised and relieved to find this one with 2′ of clear water, especially on a warm and sunny day. Late in the afternoon and another liter down, I arrived at a second guzzler and this one too had good water. Those early January rains have really helped.

I didn’t make it much further after finding a nice, flat, less rocky spot in a shallow wash. I was hoping to see a desert tortoise or a desert bighorn today but no such luck.