Earthquake / Vallecito Valley - Part 1 - ABDSP

You never know what you will find when you start hiking cross country out thru the desert. I spent a couple of weekends exploring Earthquake and Vallecito Valley. From the very north end of Blair Valley to Potrero Canyon there are many interesting desert features to discover if you spend the time exploring. Temperatures ranged from 105 during the day to mid 50's at night.

Mylar balloon count for this trip - 5

Animals seen - (1) Bobcat, (1) Coyote and many Raptors, Lizards and Mice.

After arriving in the early evening to Blair Valley, I decided to do a quick hike up to the top of Ghost Mountain.

Interesting rock carvings



Cool old Pepsi can I found


One of my favorite milling stations at Morteros Village


Geologically interesting boulder for sure


View of Little Blair Valley and the Morteros Village area from Ghost Mountain


Ghost Mountain Register


Night time stars near Morteros Village



First stop in the morning is what Earthquake Valley was named for, Shake 'n Quake



The Shake BM Register was in good shape, it did not have too many entries. Only a few small pages from the original 2002 date of the first page. Apparently not very many people come here.


Hiking cross country thru the cactus and sun baked volcanic rocks reveals some more interesting finds. There is some debris left from an old F-8J Crusader crash that happened in the late 1960's.

Here is part of an engine


Here is what looks like a wing section


Close up of the wing flap hinge, it was pretty massive


More scattered debris and some landing gear in the distance


Close up of the landing gear


An old shovel and a couple of faded water bottles in the shadows of a nearby Juniper show someone was trying to unearth the massive airplane wreckage debris


Moving along across the bajada I spotted some pottery and a few milling sites


Can you see the pottery sherds in the centuries old sun baked volcanic rocks?


Here is an old Indian Agave Roasting Pit area


uhhh..old Indian Phalic symbol..??


And it's counterpart..


Pictographs enhanced with DStretch


This is what I call the three "P's"...Pencil,Pottery & Poo. Don't mess with Mountain Lions


Well that is Part 1 for now, I will post Part 2 in the next few days, thanks for reading!