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This page last updated on 06/15/2017
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| (Fig. 01) |
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03/08/2016 Trip Notes: After a failed attempt to hike Sloan Canyon, due to a road closure, Harvey Smith, Blake Smith, Robert Croke and myself decided to go out to Calico Basin. From the Ash Spring trailhead at the parking lot at the end of Sandstone Drive, we headed west, then northwest up the desert hillside to the base of Dragon Peak. We hiked up more than 350 feet to an elevation of nearly 3,600 feet. See the green arrow in the upper right of the picture in (Fig. 03). We wanted to hike to the top of the ridge-line, the second green arrow on the horizon, but realized that we would have had to hike up yet another difficult, rocky strewn (Fig. 04) elevation of nearly four hundred additional feet and, an additional distance of more than a half mile. We decided that it was more difficult than we had originally envisioned. Even though it was still too early to see any of the spring blooms we envisioned on our previous trip here during April of last year (Click the link at the bottom of the page) , we did find the occasional rock daisy (Fig. 05). From here we followed the trail that led us down to the spring at the base of this steep steep hill. The view in the picture seen in (Fig. 01), a little more than halfway down, provided a nice view of the town and Calico Basin. When we finally reached the bottom most point near the source of Ash Spring we ended up in the bottom of a wash. The view in (Fig. 06) was a shot looking northwest up the wash. (con't below)
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| (Fig. 03) |
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| (Fig. 04) |
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| (Fig. 05) |
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| (Fig. 06) |
Trip notes continued: Looking southwest we were confronted with two very large boulders. Behind these boulders there was a small spring pool where water was slowly seeping out of the surrounding rocks (Fig. 07). After squeezing through a small opening in the rocks, we found a nice, quiet area where we all enjoyed a nice picnic lunch (Fig. 08). The quiet solitude here was absolutely wonderful. From here we hiked east across the open desert meadow between the Ash Spring creek and the base of the Calico mountains (Fig. 09). In the heavily eroded creek along the north side (Fig. 10), there were several areas where spring's water was flowing along the surface (Fig. 11). Climbing south we headed up out of the meadow to a small plateau where the local residents had created a very large geoglyph. Both Bob and I snapped pictures of Harvey and Blake standing in the center of the geoglyph (Fig. 12). From all I can gather about the cement foundations and septic tank adjacent to the geoglyph area at the end of the road is all that remains of a failed house building attempt (Fig. 13). It's too bad, it would have had the best view of Ash Canyon and Ash Spring in the entire basin (Fig. 14). I would like to like my hiking partner, Bob Croke for providing pictures (Figs. 01, 02, 10 & 12).
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| (Fig. 07) |
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| (Fig. 08) |
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| (Fig. 09) |
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| (Fig. 10) |
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| (Fig. 11) |
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| (Fig. 12) |
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| (Fig. 13) |
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| (Fig. 14) |
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