New Hike Today

Today we did a new hike in the Goldfield Mountains. We had planned on following the hike described in the guidebook as "Hill 2685" but ended up making our own route. The hike left from the Dome Mountain Trailhead and followed FS10 (Forest Service road 10). We thought we had missed the turnoff described in the notes but now I think we were right. Either way we ended up hiking along a wash that had some really colorful rocks. And talk about big boulders! I found it impossible to imagine how even the biggest flood could move some of them. Eventually we came to a rocky hillside that had several pools of water. It's always amazing to see standing water in the desert. The main goal of the hike was to see the Mask Arch, a double arch that was in the area. But we couldn't find it. Now I realize that we needed to travel down the wash just a little further to see the arch. Oh well, we'll see it next time. At this point we were tired so we decided to return the same way we had come instead of completing the loop described. And instead of following the same wash back we followed a smaller one. That turned out to be a mistake as it was quite overgrown with lots of thorny bushes. Eventually we climbed out of the wash and saw FS10 a short way away. After bushwhacking back to it we followed it back to the parking area.

Karen on FS10 at the start of the hike.

Karen climbing down one of the huge boulders in the wash.

Pool of standing water.

Barrel cactus growing out of the rocks.

Karen at the rocky pools.

Ross at the rocky pools.

Karen at a pool further up the rocky area.

Karen and one of the colorful Goldfield Mountain hills.