Saturday, January 9, 2016

Santa Rosa Mountains / Martinez Canyon 12 Days of Backpacking Christmas Trip

Long overdue are some trip reports for Dec 2015 and the first quarter of 2016. Over the Christmas/Winter/Holiday (take your pick) Break I managed to get almost 12 days of backpacking in the Santa Rosa Mountains and Martinez Canyon area. Most of these photos are from a small Olympus XA film camera I picked up just for backpacking trips. It is a small lightweight 35mm film camera that takes very sharp pictures. Fuji Velvia 50 slide film provided lots of color and an old school look that I love so much in photos.

Sort of an Ansel Adams moment atop a razor sharp and crumbly limestone ridge
Pinyon Tree ABove Ash Canyon

A panorama from the same ridge looking towards Cochella (click to see full size image)
Ash Canyon - Santa Rosa Wilderness

This is a small area of the now dried up Lake Cahuilla shoreline. The years gone by have left an easily seen water line on the rocks
Ancient Lake Cahuilla Water Lines

Personally I prefer to just squat over a hole in the ground but if you gotta sit while taking care of business then this would be your best friend
Cowboy Crapper

Moon rise from an unnamed canyon we camped in


Lots of Bighorn Tracks and body parts




Those old time cowboys really knew how to party, Gallo Wine and Hostetter's Stomach Bitters
Hostetters Stomach Bitters

There are also a handful of photos from my new Garmin Montana 600 GPS, it surprised me with how good of photos it can take and it is able to evaluate some tough low light exposures pretty well (sunrise/sunset).

Early morning sunrise looking at Toro Peak, yes, those are patches of snow on the ground, it was cold at night up on the mountain range!


Randy is hauling a hefty pack up several thousand feet of climbing in one day, I am not sure how he does it, especially with the light snow all over the place making it very slippery


The snow we had for a couple of days made animal tracking lots of fun and we did not need to carry much water since we could drink/eat the snow


Sunrise over the Salton Sea. I have to say that waking up in the morning and looking out over the Salton Sea from anywhere on the Santa Rosa mountain range is without a doubt one of my favorite parts of any trip up there, it is just magical


There are probably dozens of airplane wrecks in the Santa Rosa mountains, we found one










Gary & Randy enjoying some morning Starbucks looking out over Cochella Valley, damn it was cold..!!


Up near Rabbit Peak we could see down into Borrego Springs and Clark Lake


I hope you enjoy these photos of Martinez Canyon area and the Santa Rosa Mountain range










2 comments:

  1. Wow! Nice pictures...we went backpacking with the kids last June in the Eastern Sierras. Nothing like playing in the snow in summer.

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    1. Glad you were able to go with your kids, the Sierras are a lot of fun, better than following some wacko running thru Death Valley in a car..!!

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