No Safe Way To Cross

DAY THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHT

I had big plans this morning. OK, maybe not big plans but a medium plan; alright, a plan. I'd hoped to take a drive up Highway 74 and hike cross country over toward Deep Canyon. This canyon is largely inaccessible but I wanted to see if I could follow a hunch and get down to it but life got in the way. That tends to happen when I try to make plans.

My son, Nikolas, woke up this morning with a fever, sore throat and other symptoms of a bad cold. Instead of going out and doing what I wanted to do, I hung out at home and kept an eye on Nik. There's not much you can do for a sick kid other than offer him something to drink and make sure he's comfortable so it's very frustrating. You wish you could do something but you really can't. So after I made sure he was comfortable I went on a little hike.

I couldn't go too far so I thought I'd try to find the start of the trail that goes to the cross on the west side of the La Quinta Cove. I've hiked to this cross before and one time I found a trail that someone put up here but never was able to find out where it started or finished. Hopefully, I'd be able to find that out today.

I head up a faint trail and see where I think a trail goes. See it?

Once up on the ridge the trail takes a bit more shape.

And even further up it gets even more distinct. It goes like this but then I get to a problem spot.

At this point it gets really sketchy. The trail goes across this section where one misstep would send me falling about twenty feet onto the rocks below. I decide that today it's not worth the 0.1% that I might not make it across. No one knows where I am in case I fall and get hurt, I've got a sick kid sleeping at home and the last time I was up here I was attacked by a swarm of bees. Going home seems the sensible thing to do.

Even the way back doesn't look too good at least if I trip here I won't fall to my death.

So far I've tried to get up to this cross three times and made it once. Sometimes the most direct route turns out to be the best.