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7 April 2021: Got up early and went back to the Coon Bluff area to look for the horses again. This time did some exploring around the area along the river too. Had some good luck and came across a few different bands of the horses and chatted with a local photographer who has been documenting the herd for years. Learned a bit about the “controversy” over the horses’ “territory” and got to observe the animals in their environment before leaving the Phoenix area and heading for Cottonwood …
6 April 2021: Broke camp in the morning then began the drive from Lake Mead in Nevada to Mesa Arizona where we stopped at Coon Bluff to see if we could spot the Salt River Wild Horses. Was delighted to encounter a huge herd of them grazing in the late afternoon …
5 April 2021: Scouted out a Jeep trail that goes right to the water’s edge in an oasis-like environment after a fun drive. Boathouse Cove has a few dispersed camping spots along the way and turned out to be an easy but fun drive through quite varied terrain. The wind was picking up again in the afternoon and the weather looked like it was getting ready to change. Took a short hike on the “Train” trail, but abandoned the effort as the winds became oppressive…
4 April 2021: Did some exploring today — first around the familiar red rock area of the Pinto Valley Wilderness known as Redstone, then on to someplace new. Went searching for the remnants of a town that was submerged when the Hoover Dam was created. In recent years with the droughts in the southwest, the water levels have gone down and bits of St. Thomas have reappeared. It was a long hike down a steep trail to get to the few foundations that mark the town site, but it was worth it …
3 April 2021: Two weeks ago it was still freezing here at night, and now suddenly it is in the 90’s during the day and barely cool enough to sleep comfortably at night. It has also gotten even more crowded. Luckily there was a spot at the Las Vegas Bay campground in the Lake Mead NRA, and even though it wasn’t in the “tent” section we snapped it up right away, as it is the Easter Holiday weekend. Got camp set up easily as there was no wind, and settled in for a relaxing few summer-like days…
2 April 2021: Wrapped up the short stop at home with a surreal drive through mid-town Manhattan to the airport for the flight back to Las Vegas and the desert. It was so strange to be in the middle of the city like a tourist, or like an unseen spirit viewing what had become of a once familiar world …
THIS MONTH:
Navigation and Tread Trainer principles are the focus of the next Ladies Offroad Network camping adventure in Arizona. The group will be spending five days working on navigation skills covering everything from paper maps to GPS and the various navigation apps currently in use, then they will head out to test their knowledge on Arizona trails…
COMING UP SOON:
Joining in on a Ladies Offroad Network camping adventure in Arizona: Five days of fun learning out on the trail and in camp with Charlene Bower and a small group of adventure-minded ladies. The event consists of three core days of trail runs and training, and two days with additional optional activities designed around the event theme…
Every Day Is a Clean Up Day in 2021. Ladies Offroad Network has partnered with TreadLightly! to create a year-long program that encourages members to pick up trash on the trails whenever they are out off-roading. Participants simply pick up the trash, weigh it, take a photo, and log the location and time it took, then upload the details. At the end of the year there will be a series of prizes based on pounds of trash removed from the trails as well as participation in other TreadLightly! initiatives. This is a great way to do some good on a local level and make a larger impact via the national program…
Looking ahead to a return to Paris as soon as possible to reconnect with friends and some favorite places in the city of light. Timing is still uncertain due to the pandemic, but we hope the trip is back on the calendar for early 2021…
SALT RIVER WILD HORSES
The Salt River wild horses are the historic and majestic creatures roaming the lower Salt River in the Tonto National Forest in Arizona. They are the pride of the community, a favorite subject of photographers and the icon of the wild, representing freedom, rugged beauty and an unbreakable spirit. According to Arizona’s historical records, wild horses have been living on the Salt River and the Salt River Valley since well before the Tonto National Forest was created in 1902. They were brought into the limelight in recent years as the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group fought an epic battle for their protection and the animals are now protected pursuant to Arizona Revised Statute 3-1491 (aka the Salt River Horse Act). The hundreds of horses that live within the Tonto National Forest and roam along the banks of the Salt River are technically feral, as they’re the descendants of horses the Spanish re-introduced to North America during their conquests of the New World. However, as with most of the feral horses in the United States, they’re referred to as “wild.” Though they’d been living on the land for centuries, the horses’ fates became uncertain in 2015 when the United States Forest Service issued a notice declaring the herd “unauthorized livestock” and announced a plan to capture and remove them. The Forest Service cited overpopulation as the problem — the horses were breeding at a rate that exceeded the capacity of the land to sustain them. That’s when the local advocates formed the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group as a nonprofit that works to manage the herd’s population growth humanely–seasonally darting a percentage of the the animals with a non-hormonal birth control vaccine that prevents pregnancy for one year…
GHOST OF ST. THOMAS
St. Thomas is a ghost town in Clark County, Nevada, near where the Muddy River flows into the Colorado River. Once a Mormon settlement, it thrived as a stopping point between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City along the Arrowhead Trail. The town was abandoned as the waters of Lake Mead submerged it to a point higher than 60 feet above the tallest structure in the 1930s. However, when the level of Lake Mead began dropping due to severe drought in the 2000s, the ruins of the town resurfaced. Now visitors can roam what remains of a true western ghosttown. The peak population of St. Thomas was around 500 people. There was a school, post office, grocery stores, church, soda fountain, and several garages for the new invention of the automobile. In 1928, President Calvin Coolidge signed the bill authorizing the building of the Hoover Dam. This dam would create a large lake behind it, Lake Mead, and as the waters rose, areas that had been high and dry along the Muddy and Virgin Rivers would be inundated by the lake. The residents of St. Thomas were told they would have to relocate, and that the government would reimburse them for their property. The filling of Lake Mead started in 1935. As the waters rose, slowly the town was overtaken by the lake. One of the last residents to leave was Hugh Lord, who paddled away from his home when the rising waters lapped at his front door in 1938. St. Thomas lies in the northern part of the Lake Mead Recreation Area and can be accessed via three miles of bumpy dirt road after turning off the scenic byway…
Nesconset | Paris | Belgrade | Akron | St. Louis | Clinton | Grants | Yuma | Borrego Springs | Laughlin | Baker | Barstow | Ridgecrest | Lone Pine | Death Valley | Beatty | Sedona | Phoenix
MORE NOTES FROM THE ROAD:
16-31 March – New York
8-15 March – Death Valley
1-7 March – Arizona
22-28 Februay – Alabama Hills
15-21 Februay – Mojave Road
8-14 Februay – Death Valley
1-7 Februay – Glamis
15-31 January – Roadtrip Southwest
1-14 January – Long Island
22-31 December – Holiday Roadtrip
15-21 December – Holiday Roadtrip
7-14 December – Holiday Roadtrip
1-6 December – Long Island
15-30 November – Long Island
1-14 November – Long Island
28-31 October – Roadtrip East
22-27 October – Moab
15-21 October – Moab
8-14 October – Moab
1-7 October – Roadtrip West
16-30 September – Roadtrip West
1-15 September – Long Island
16-31 August – Long Island
1-15 August – Summer Roadtrip
22-31 July – Summer Roadtrip
14-21 July – Summer Roadtrip
1-13 July – Long Island
16-30 June – Long Island
1-15 June – Bald Eagle
16-31 May – Central PA
1-15 May – Re-opening Trails
April – Lockdown NY
Archive
EVENTS
LADIES OFFROAD NETWORK NONCON 2020
Recap from the Ladies Offroad Network camping and wheeling event, dubbed the “NonCon” as in “not the convention,” that came together after the official convention was cancelled due to the pandemic… [read]
RE-OPENING
Report from the first trail run with the Off Road Consulting group at Rausch Creek Off Road Park as the post-pandemic phased re-openings begin in Pennsylvania and some of our favorite local trails re-open to the public after the two-month shutdown… [read]
REFLECTIONS
EGYPT: CAIRO REFLECTIONS
A quick overview of impressions from a stop in Cairo during our recent scouting mission in Egypt and Sudan … [read]
SPECIAL REPORT
A look into south-eastern Algeria on the border with Libya and Niger: overlanding with the Tuareg in one of the most remote corners of the Sahara … [read]
