Around Arch Rock trail, Joshua Tree National Park

Hiked April 12, 2025. Moved this one up in the publication queue because of its timeliness.

A recently discovered comet had me itching at the chance to get out somewhere dark to have a try at it. Its name is C/2025F2 SWAN. It's called "SWAN" because it was discovered by the "Solar Wind Anisotropies instrument, about the European Space Agency's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Most comets are being discovered by these automated imaging observatories, once someone gets around to reviewing the data. NEOWISE and Tsuchinshan-Atlas were two other recent examples of that.

On March 29, this comet was observed on data collected by SWAN. On April 8, it got the current official name. Unfortunately, it may have been undergoing an outburst right about when the first photographs were taken following the announcement. It apparently got dimmer after that, so, unlike some previous comets, it has really been pretty quiet on my facebook feed and news stories for this guy. Most are still using the first photos following the report, which showed a long and thin tail. The more recent photos look more like what I got on April 13, which was a small and undefined fuzziness.

As I write this, Comet C/2025F2 SWAN is in the morning sky, rising a little before sunrise. It gets less than five degrees up (ten apparent moon diameters) before dawn starts brightening the sky.

On the morning I viewed, it was in the east-northeast. It's moving further north each night, but also getting lower in the sky. It'll be hard to catch as we get towards later April, unless it gets a lot brighter.

I had two ideas for where I might view: Ryan Mountain trailhead, or Arch Rock Trailhead. I've done viewing from both locations in the past, and visited both sites the afternoon of the 12th. Ryan Mountain works better for things to the west, but the land climbs in altitude, and there are rocks and hills to the east, so for a low in the east-northeast comet, it didn't look like it would work well.

Meanwhile, although there is a slight hill to the east and northeast of Arch Rock trailhead, it's far enough away that it doesn't take too long for objects in the east to rise above them. I confirm this while parked in the lot, and picked my spot for the next morning. Then, with about 90 minutes before the end of civil twilight, I went hiking.

No particular destination. I've seen the major attractions here many times (Arch Rock and Heart Rock), and also wandered, in the past. Did the same, this evening.

Late afternoon and early evening is a great time to go hiking in the desert. The sun is low, and the soft, warm light makes the desert look rather magical. Everywhere I turned, I saw somethng photogenic.

Began my return trek as the sun went down. Atop several different outcroppings, my fellow hikers sat, watching the sun set over the Joshua trees.

Not sure of my hiking distance, because I forgot to shut my Alltrails recording when I got back to the car. The actual Arch Rock trail is given as 1.2 miles roundtrip. However, I wandered a lot before looping back to Arch Rock. I also made the spur to Heart Rock. So I would estimate a bit more than three miles for the afternoon.<\p>

The next morning, I got to the parking area around 3:45am, and set up my 8" dob, and two photographic setups. But I forgot the setting to let me take longer exposures with my Nikon D3500 (you need to change a video setting if you're using Liveview to take exposures longer than 1/60th of a second, even in photo mode). Once set up, it was a lot of scanning with the telescope and snapping photos with my 80mm refractor setup.

It was somewhat cloudy, and a practically full moon was off in the west, so the sky was pretty bright, even before dawn. That limited the exposures to only 8-13 seconds. Good for limiting star trailing, I guess. But not good for picking up comets.

I did get images of the comet, but no tail was visible. Just a greenish smudge.

I'm going to try again on April 20. As noted above, the comet may be brighter, but it will also be lower in the sky. Also, while the moon is smaller (waning, last quarter), it will also be closer in the sky to the comet.

Unfortunately, the latest news is not encouraging. Sounds like the comet may have disintegrated, which would explain the brief outburst early last week, then the dramatic dimming after that.

Cathedral Gorge State Park, Lincoln County, NV

Hiked March 29 and March 30, 2025. I had been "to" Cathedral Gorge once before, stopping on the way to or from Great Basin National Park. But that was on a pre-blog trip, a long time ago, probably ten years before the Great Basin hikes that did get blogged. And that trip was just a view from the overlook. It was nice, but didn't really resonate.

Then, more recently, I started getting things on my facebook feed from Cathedral Gorge that looked a lot more amazing that I experienced. Keep in mind, I'm skeptical of some of those views, because my personal experience and feeling when hiking, for example, Angels Landing was not nearly as spooky or stress-inducing as videos I have seen of the same hike. In fact, I took a second or third hike Angels Landing, because the video experience was so much more dramatic than my recollection. In that case, I confirmed that, no, with with chain, the dropoffs were really not very threatening. Still, figured my one trip to Cathedral Gorge was pretty surface-only, and a long time ago, so another trip was in order.

So those videos I saw of Cathedral Gorge made me want to revisit the place, and, especially, to experience it from within the gorge rather than from above.

From the Las Vegas area, it's 2 1/2 to three hours driving time, depending on where in the valley you are starting from and what time you leave, because, especially for folks southeast of the Spheghetti Bowl, you'll have to drive through that aggravating interchange. Once through there, it's north on I-15, which is also US-93, for about 21 miles, to where the "Great Basin Highway" (US-93) separates from I-15 and heads due north.

There's a rather unattractive Love's truck stop on US-93, near I-15. After that, there are no formal flush-toilet rest areas between that and Cathedral Gorge, though there are a few smaller gas stations along the way. There's also the visitor center for Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge, where we did stop, both coming and going (more on that in the next post). And that's about it. Otherwise, it's a pretty lonely drive. Not really any chain restaurants along the way, other than I think the occasional Subway in a gas station.

There is a BLM office in Caliente, about 14 miles south of Cathedral Gorge, which I would like to have stopped at, but they're only open on weekdays. There are about five major historic rock art sites not far off the route to Cathedral Gorge, but all require some amount of driving on dirt roads. I wanted to see which could be reasonably accessed by someone driving a Camry, and how long the walks would be from any parking areas to the rock art. Not able to ask that, but I did find some flyers for those sites at the regional state park visitor center at Cathedral Gorge, so I have that to work off of, in the future.

The closest town to Cathedral Gorge is Panaca. There are no "regular" motels in Panaca, but there are at least two "bed and breakfast" properties (both owned or operated by the same group of folks). Other than that, you'd have to camp in the state park, or stay a motel back in Caliente.

We checked in to the "Pine Tree Inn," because this one had breakfast on site, while a review for the other B and B said you had to drive to the nearby "affiliated" site for your food. That being the case, I figured I'd rather stay where the food was!

Price was about $100 a night. Room was comfortable. Private bathroom attached. Locking bedroom door. Microwave and refrigerator shared, upstairs. Also, frozen or shelf-stable food available for purchase, which would be a major convenience, since there is no real restaurant in Panaca, either. So if you didn't bring your own dinner or snacks, you would either buy it from the B and B (reasonable prices) or starve. We brought our own food.

After dinner, I drove the 10 or 15 minutes into the park, paid my entry fee at an automated kiosk ($10 for a non-NV plate on my car), drove to the end of the day use road, and wandered. Even just wandering a fraction of a mile from the parking area, among the slotted canyons, eroded in the clay, was pretty amazing. The hard but easily eroded clay made some fantastic shapes. The blue sky contrasted with the yellowish shale, which photographed warmer than it appeared to the naked eye, because my cell phone camera has no IR cutoff filter. (That's why you can see IR tv remotes light up when you point them at your cell phone camera). Pigeons apparently nest in some of the openings in the clay.

After 20 minutes or so of messing around inside the gorges, I walked the Juniper Draw Loop trail. I was initially confused by a closure sign, but that only applied to a spur along this trail. The loop itself was open. It's about three miles long, so less than 90 minutes, even with lots of stops for pictures. I managed to finish before dark, though somewhat after sunset. My day pass, by the way, said I had to be gone within one hour of sunset. So I'm not sure how things work if you want to do astronomy or astrophotography but not camp in the park. I encountered no park personnel during my visit. Even the visitor center was unstaffed when we popped in, the next day.

The next morning, I returned to the park. I brought back my non-hiking wife, who I thought would enjoy even the short wanders into the slots, which she did. Cost me another ten bucks, but it was worth it.

There's another hike that would have taken me up the west side of the gorge (Hawk's Ridge trail, about four miles), but I figured I had experienced the main vibe for the park, already. Then we went back to our B and B and ate breakfast. Tasty, by the way.

Skipping the morning hike let us leave Panaca earlier. I already planned to stop for a short hike in Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge, so I knew I had another 60-90 minutes in addition to the drive time to go to get back to Henderson. So, away we went.

Bell Rock Pathway and Vicinity, Red Rock Ranger District, Coconino National Forest, AZ

Hiked March 16, 2025. After the drive down from Kingman and the visits to the Crane Petroglyphs and Montezuma Castle, we drove back up I-17, exiting again at Exit 298, AZ-179. Left turn at the bottom of the ramp and you're on your way toward Sedona. Our motel tonight was the Kokopelli Inn Sedona, although it's actually in the village of Oak Creek, a bit south of Sedona. It was priced somewhere around $250 a night, or 27,000 Wyndham Rewards Points, which is what I used.

Room was nice, the location worked, and the price, while very high by my standards, was about what other rooms would go for in the area. And I've got plenty of points, so although the value for the points was not particularly good (less than a penny per point), it did mean no out of pocket expense, which is a plus.

The price included a light breakfast. "Overnight oatmeal" was the main attraction. With available dried fruit and nuts, it was pretty hearty. Beyond that, it was toast, muffins, coffee, or juices. I grabbed a muffin, but wound up eating two oatmeals, instead. The muffin went home with me. At home, one of the cats found it, and chewed it up. Stupid cat. :D

The hike was after a late lunch. We wanted to eat at a place in actual Sedona, but the traffic was terrible, followed by the impossibility of finding parking, so we wound up driving back to where we started from and eating at Los Betos, a local Mexican food chain that we first became acquainted with about 25 years ago (!), during my wife's internship in Tucson.

After a bit of resting up, I walked out of the room, down the stairs, and headed north. My Alltrails showed an access to the trail system by just heading along the residential streets, east of AZ-179. Unfortunately, that was a lie. Accessing the trail would have required crossing a signed No Trespassing area. So I had to backtrack a bit to get back to the main highway, and approach via the large (but mostly full of cars) parking area that is the south trailhead for the Bell Rock Pathway.

I had no real destination or route in mind, other than going mostly north, and trying to make a loop of it. My intial though of going around Courthouse Butte was nixed, on account of it possibly taking too long. I only had about two hours of daylight, and, despite having Alltrails, could not be sure about the difficulty if I did start the loop and then ran out of daylight.

So I just wandered around Bell Rock. Ended up going counterclockwise rather than clockwise, as I would have preferred, just because there were some young women ahead of me who turned that way, and I didn't want them to feel like I was following them. I mean, if I knew where I was going, I could have just accelerated past them, but because I didn't know where I was going, I had to keep stopping at each trail crossing to confirm my direction.

And because this is a heavily used trail, there are a LOT of crossing trails, and a lot of unofficial trails. Even with the heavy signage, it was easy to get misdirected. Matter of fact, later that hike, I encountered an "older" couple (meaning probably a little younger than me) who couldn't find their car. I directed them to go back the way I came and make a left, and it would take them back to the parking lot. But then, about an hour later, as I made my way around Bell Rock, there they were again, heading north, rather than south. I sure hope they were parked where I thought they were parked, because, otherwise, who knows how long they had to walk after dark!

In any event, Alltrails says I walked about 4 3/4 miles, mostly flat, and got back to my room somewhat after sundown, but before it got dark. No doubt, could easily spend several days hiking the area and visiting other ancient indigenous ruins. But it was only a long weekend for me, and I had to get back.

Incredibly scenic place, but also pretty heavily travelled. Still, not hard to get some breathing space, once you got away from the road.

The next morning, before breakfast, we made a quick drive north to see the Chapel in the Rock. It was one of two things I saw pictures of before going, and wanted to see.

Turns out if you go early, the road to the top is gated, so I could only take a picture of it from far below.

I was told that around spring break is their busy time, and it surely was busy. The debacle of trying to eat in Sedona was off-putting, but, man, those rocks sure are pretty. It's as gorgeous in real-life as it was in pictures. I'd like to return again, with more time for hiking. Would also be great in a monsoon -- you could see stains where short-lived waterfalls must run, after those rains or after the snowfall melts. That would also be amazing.

Crane Petroglyphs, Montezuma Castle and the Mohave Twins

Hiked March 15 and 16, 2025. Photos are generally in reverse order of the post.

Headed out of the Las Vegas area on the afternoon of March 15. First stop was the Mohave Twins, a geoglyph in the town of Fort Mohave, AZ. Nearly zero hiking involved. From Laughlin, NV, it's approximately 30 minutes / 15 miles south on AZ-95. The linked story above provides another link for driving directions. It'll also show up on google maps.

The Twins are represented as related to the local indigenous peoples, the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, and may be close to 3000 years old. Because of the lack of an organic construction material, I expect accurately dating something like this would be difficult, to say the least. They're simiar to (but smaller than) the Blythe Intaglios, further to the south.

The Twins were just a little bonus, not too long of a detour off of I-40, but a chance to see something kind of different, and to let us "bag" something on that first, short driving segment. It's not a big enough deal to be a destination on its own, but it's definitely worth a short detour from other things.

BTW, the town and fort in Arizona are spelled with an "h," while the Indian Tribe now spells their name with a "j." I have seen the geoglyph referred to by both spellings. I went with the "h" spelling, here.

After the visit, we headed back up toward I-40 and stayed overnight in Kingman, AZ. Rather scenic drive to get to I-40, btw. Much more colorful than actually along I-40.

The next day, we headed east, through Williams, to Flagstaff, and I-17. From there, we then took I-17 south, to AZ-179, Exit 298.

That's the same exit you'd take for Sedona, but to get to the Crane Petroglyphs, you turn left (east) at the bottom of the ramp, and head into the Coconino National Forest. Incidentally, while the offramps from I-17 have a stop sign, traffic on AZ-179 does not have a stop sign. People who don't pay attention to signage may try to hit you as you cross under I-17.

We headed east from I-17 for a few miles, following the signs to the Crane Petroglyphs. Because they close at 3pm, we wanted to make sure to hit this, first.

Parking at the trailhead requires the AZ Desert equivalent of an Adventure Pass, which they call a Red Rock Pass, which you can buy at a vending machine in the lot. Five dollars a day, I think. Or, if you already have a federal public lands pass ("America the Beautiful," or similar), you can park there for free, if you hang your pass on your rearview mirror. Because I had the America the Beautiful pass, I didnt need to buy the day pass, so I didn't pay attention to what the price was.

From the parking area, it's about 1/4 of a mile down to your right to the visitor center, where you sign in. Flush toilet there, if you need it. Vault toilet, closer to the petroglyphs, as well.

There are some remains of the V-V (V Bar V) ranch that used to be here. Tall chimney, several fences and gates, and evidences of water diversions to capture runoff. I assume the diversions were from the ranch era, and not older.

In the 1994, the Coconino National Forest acquired the land. The area was then rechristened as the Crane Petroglyphs Heritage Site. The namesake cranes are visible in the photo above this text, and a closer photo two shots, previous.

The name was adopted as an alternative to the "V-V Ranch Petroglyphs," because the Sinagua didn't want their written heritage to be referred to by the name of the ranchers that came long after they were created. Nonetheless, the V-V ranch did mostly prevent the petroglyphs from being defaced. There was only one relatively modern, Latin-lettered carving into those rocks.

It's an impressive collection of petroglyphs, about a 1/2 mile from the visitor center.

I have to admit I haven't studied the many petroglyphs I have seen in recent years to be able to figure out the connections and differences spread out across so much of the western United States, but I really should learn more. Of course, a lot of what is "known" is speculation. Even the oral histories from contemporary indiginous peoples may not always be the same as what the original artist may have intended, but it is often all we have to go on.

Volunteer interpreters were in the visitor center, and at the petroglyph panels.

These petroglyphs are attributed to the Sinagua (without water) group of indigenous people, who still live in the area, and claim a direct attachment to the petroglyphs.

The trail is flat, so relatively accessible. I saw several strollers being pushed along the trail. I did not see any dogs, and I'm not sure if dogs are allowed on this trail or not. A yellowish fruit was really common along the walk.

We walked back to the car, then drove back to I-17, and headed south about nine miles, to Exit 289, then followed the signs to Montezuma Castle National Monument. Fair-sized parking area, outside the visitor center. Pay or show your pass in the visitor center/bookstore. Then, there's a short, 1/2 mile or so loop, to view the "castle," the Beaver River, then back to the car. This walk is entirely paved. You can not approach the ruins, but must view them from below. Impressive sight, and apparently mostly original masonry. The time period would have been roughly contemporaneous with Mesa Verde or Canyon de Chelley's cliff dwellings.

Santa Clara - Virgin River Confluence, Saint George, UT

Hiked September 23, 2024. I bought my Toyota Camry back in July, 2024. It comes with two years or 25,000 miles of free scheduled maintenance. So, as I was planning my Utah trip to support the Southwest Astronomy Festival, I calculated I would be rapidly approaching my 5,000 mile point for my first scheduled service. And, because of the way the service contract works, I figured it ends at 25,000 miles, no matter how many times you've serviced it. So I wanted to get my service appointmens in prior to each 5,000 miles, so my final service would be just before 25,000 miles. Obviously, given my driving habits, this isn't going to take two years. (As I write this, I'm now at about 16,500 miles. Fairly good chance I'll need my 20,000 mile service by early June, before 11 months have elapsed).

So, after figuring I'd break 5,000 miles before getting back to California, I arranged my first service for the tail end of my trip, on the return trip. Checked out of my motel room in La Verkin on Monday morning, drove down to Saint George's local Toyota Dealer (Stephen Wade), and got my car serviced. While waiting for that, I walked along the paved and unpaved, but hard-surfaced trails that run around and along the Virgin and Santa Clara Rivers, which meet near where the rivers pass under I-15.

Obviously, this was a hike of convenience, and not necessarily to see anything, although I had been told there were petroglyphs near the confluence of these rivers. Did not find any, so I'm not sure if that was correct. Had I known, I might have instead headed on a more southerly route, to the big rock in Bloomington, Utah, which is covered in petroglypths (and more recent markings, unfortunately). At 3.1 miles each way by foot, that would have been probably longer than I wanted, but, in theory, 2 1/2 hours or less, roundtrip, which is about how long my car was going to take. Been to that rock before, but not blogged, I think.

As it is, I walked downstream, to Crosby Family Confluence Park. Zigged-zagged around there, looking for where petroglyphs might be. Then headed, first downstream and up, to get an overview of the Virgin River, then back across the Virgin and upstream a bit up the Santa Clara River.

Only got a little that way before my phone rang to tell me my car was ready. Made my way back to the dealer, then continued my drive south, to Las Vegas, and, eventually, back to California.

Lots of joggers and bikers on these trails. It's a perfectly lovely way to wait for your car to be serviced, but not likely the sort of thing you'd otherwise plan to walk or run. In addition to folks visiting the Auto Mall, there are several hotels, as well as the convention center, which have easy walking access to this trail system, which links numerous parks along the two rivers. That makes this a good option for visitors looking for a morning or evening jog or walk.

As for myself, the trail system served its purpose of keeping me occupied and not just having a zero physical activity day on a mostly driving day. No significant wildlife sighted, but I did see a hot air balloon and an ultralight flying (propeller-driven) handglider. That was sufficiently amusing. About two hours of walking, probably about five miles, total walking.

I still miss my Prius. It was more practical for hauling me and my telescope stuff to various events. But the Camry has a much better suspension (also newer, so some might be that). The suspension will get a good workout in a few months, when my wife and I plan to visit Chaco Culture Historic Park.

Santa Clara River Reserve, near St George, Utah

Hiked September 21, 2024. This was a short hike, after a day of solar outreach as part of the Southwest Astronomy Festival. The NPS and the local St. George astronomy group (and I!) set up solar telescopes at the Red Hills Desert Garden, a demonstration garden for low-water and native plants acceptable for local landscaping. That was down in St. George, proper, adjacent to Pioneer Park (which I've hiked in the past -- In fact, I've hiked it at least twice, but I only see one post in my history; never blogged the other one, I guess), and not far from the Days Inn on Saint George Blvd, where I've stayed, in the past. (In fact, on my unblogged visit to Pioneer Park, I walked over there from the Days Inn).

The Santa Clara River Reserve (BLM) is actually near Ivins, Utah, but that's a pretty small place. From Saint George, get on Old Highway 91. If you stay on Old Highway 91 long enough, it's actually a bypass for the Virgin River Narrows, so if I-15 is closed (or, during the serious construction delays of past years), it's a viable shortcut for passenger vehicles, and only marginally longer in travel time. But I digress.

Heading north on Old Highway 91, past Pioneer Parkway, it's about two miles until you reach S. Anasazi Road. It'll be a dirt road on your left, and not necessarily signed for "Anasazi Valley Trailhead." There's a large dirt lot, less than 1000 feet in, on your right. Less than 1000 feet later, there's another parking area, on your left. Passenger vehicles can park in either lot. If you're an RV or towing a trailer, definitely try the first one. That one has room for you to turnaround. No significant difference in your hiking distance, either way.

The BLM website for the Santa Clara River Reserve is here. A copy of the paper map/brochure for the area is currently here.

From either trailhead, you're basically going to want to head uphill, towards the southwest. The trail weaves its way up the hill, as should you (no cutting of switchbacks!). At the first crest, there's the remains of an Ancestral Puebloan "farmstead." By remains, we mean just a few stones that would outline the base. Not a lot to see there, but a nice lesson in what archeologists can figure out.

Continue on up, past the "farmstead," but keeping the cliff on your right, and you'll start encountering both modern signs telling you to respect and protect the evidence of prehistoric residents of the area, and the evidence, itself. Walk carefully around the area to find additional petroglyphs, but don't walk on the actually marked rocks; you'll speed erosion and loss of these ancient artifacts.

From the petroglyphs, you overlook the Santa Clara River, and, at the time I was there, some nice, green cottonwood trees. The trees would preseumably be nicely colored in another month or two.

I continued somewhat past the signed petroglyphs I saw, to see if there were more, further along the ridge. I didn't see any, which doesn't necessarily mean there weren't any. But I didn't find them. Turned around when I felt I had passed the main concentration.

All told, about three miles roundtrip. I can't say for sure, because I botched my Alltrails recording.

Since it's not a national park or national monument, dogs would presumably be allowed on this trail. At least, I did not see any indication that they were not permitted. There are some sharp volcanic rocks, but it isn't too hard for you or your hypothetical dog to avoid those rocks. Obviously, if you do bring a dog, bring a bag and clean up after them!