Pushawalla Plateau: SUCCESS!!

It is called the Zeigarnick effect. What it means is that unfinished tasks remain in one’s “to-do” list more so than do finished tasks.

And finding the Pushawalla Plateau was one of our unfinished tasks.  And we couldn't get it out of our minds.

So, today we decided to see if we could get to the top……..

And we did.

But not without some work.

This is a shot of the one-way dirt road we took to the "trailhead."  It lead to the foot of the mountains.  Really quite beautiful, I think.

  

This sign was at the trail head.  You can't imagine our disappointment that we weren't allowed to hang glide.  After carting all that equipment up there!

 

We knew that along the way we should be able to find the Hanson mine.  We were told that we actually found it a week ago, but we weren’t sure.

So we scoured the hillsides.  What we did find was the ribbons from some used-car lot.  Right up in the mountains.  How in the blazing heck did something this large get here?  Next year when we do this hike (and we will, as it is now one of our favorites) we’ll bring a large trash bag and bring it down.  

 

Vicky’s theory is that it was carried on helium balloons from Palm Springs, which is a long ways away on the other side of the mountain.  Better than anything I could come up with.  

Also along the way today, we got lost and found this structure.  It looks like a huge well, and not a real old one.  We think it is for the Desert Bighorn Sheep, and the park service doesn't want people to find it.  Are we right park service?  If so, your secret is safe with us.

 

As an aside, we are forever finding “Happy birthday” helium balloons in the desert.  Please be careful to keep them tethered.  We bring all we can back.

We finally figured out the description in our hiking book, found where our mistake(s) had been the previous attempt, and found where the old road trail headed over the mountains.

 

We are continually impressed with these old road trails.  Made over a century ago, for mule wagons, they seem impossible to use even when they were in good shape.  But men used them, pulling mule teams of wagons from far distances to mines.  

On the way up this road-trail is another historic mine:  The Pinyon Mine.  Deep, unsecured shafts.  We stayed very clear of them.

 

And recent mountain lion tracks.  We were glad we were both carrying our bear spray.

 

That’s what we followed today—an old trail road, now impassible, up to the top of a mountain to the Pushawalla Plateau.  We could see hundreds of miles—down into Palm Springs where the road once went.

Our hike for today was 8.4 miles, with 2000 foot elevation gain.  What beautiful sights.  A part of the National Park that very few people see.  To get there one has to drive on a very rough one-way road where 40-wheel drive is recommended (and high clearance is required), and the one has to hike many miles, trying to decipher hiking books and TOPO maps.

And then you get to the top and it feels like you can see forever.

We will be back.

The GPS map here shows the route directly to the plateau, without all of the other side trips we took.  If you go directly from the trail head to about ¼ mile past the Pinyan Mine to the plateau the round trip is about 6.8 miles, with 1600 foot elevation gain.