One More Mittry Lake Hike and a Ride on the River

 

  

On Saturday Jim, Chris, Suzanne and I took one last hike around Mittry Lake. We wanted to go back to the area where we saw the sheep the previous day, hoping that’s where they hang out. What a nice surprise when thy appeared about fifteen minutes into the hike. Looked like the same family of four.

We ended up doing a five mile loop, mostly along ridgelines where we had a nice breeze.

Other than the sheep we only saw two women on horseback and an ATV.

 

We could see the lake and our RVs but getting back to them is always a puzzle out there.

Interestingly, that evening at happy hour a ranger stopped to ask us if all of our party was accounted for. Apparently a woman reported seeing four hikers and she was concerned that they were lost. He said they were getting ready to spend a lot of money on a search and I think he thought we may have been the four people.

Kim’s husband has an old college friend, Jim, who works at the Army Proving Grounds just up the road from Mittry Lake. A friend of his, Rob, owns a pontoon boat and they invited Kim and her friends for a ride on the Colorado River on Sunday. Kim, Debbie, Suzanne, Chris, Jimbo and I took them up on the offer, along with Jim’s 12 year old son Bradford. My Jim, who isn’t all that crazy about water and can’t swim, decided to take a pass. It was for the better as the day turned out very windy and cool, not the most ideal for boating.

Moochers at the dock.

Backing away. That’s our fearless captain Rob in the white t-shirt.

They put in at Squaw Lake by the Imperial Dam.

 

Our first stop was Lake Martinez, a waterfront community that’s a mixture of huge lovely homes, park models and RVs.

We stopped for a bathroom break at the Cantina.

Where this photo was hanging right outside the lady’s room. Doesn’t look like any fisherman I’ve ever seen!

Our next stop was to visit an old miner’s cabin. But in order to get to the little lake to access the trail to the cabin we had to go under this overgrown brush.

 

Seriously? We thought Rob was kidding until he told us to get down as he plowed on through.

Once we got done laughing and picking leaves out of our hair, it was time to get off the boat and take a little hike to check out the cabin.

Suzanne and Chris relaxing on the porch.

We were surprised there hadn’t been more vandalism. Guess because you can only access this area by boat.

 

It was a beautiful area with trails everywhere.

 

You can barely see our boat. Luckily it was still there when we got back down to it.

 

The first cactus flower we’ve seen this year.

 

After lunch on the boat the fun was repeated on the way out.

 

Everyone down! I think the adults had as much fun as Bradford.

 

And that wasn’t all the excitement. On our way back we went through some narrow passageways that turned out to be too shallow. We ran aground a few times, and finally Debbie, Rob, Bradford and I had to get in the water to push us out, since we were the only ones wearing water sandals. Who wears shoes and socks to go out on a boat, anyway?:-)

And wouldn’t you know we came upon five kayaks and another boat. The kayakers weren’t too happy to see us coming.

 

There was barely room to pass the other boat.

 

But we made it back safely due to our fine captain. The scenery along the Colorado River is lovely and hardly anyone else was out on the water. Rob said in the summer it’s packed with boats.

 

Thanks again to Rob and Jim for putting up with Kim’s crazy friends for the day. It was a great ending to our stay at Mittry Lake.