Day Off #3
The nasty weather system that brought wet, chilly weather for the past two days has moved out and today was perfect for hiking--clear skies. plenty of sunshine, a light breeze and temperatures in the mid-60s. We wanted to investigate caves near the Best Friends entrance because we heard they contain green, blue and orange sand as well as a mountain lion painted on the wall for a movie. However, at the access point we spotted two men setting posts for a fence to bar visitors.
On to Plan B: hike Tiny Canyon to Mace Cave. Earlier in the summer we attempted to find this cave, reputed to contain petroglyphs, pictograms and metates, but lost our map while climbing to the plateau and felt uncomfortable continuing without it. Today we had a topo map loaded on the GPS and aerial photos from Google Earth. Despite these aids, we again failed to locate the cave. While traversing the plateau we noticed several places where there were numerous pottery sherds laying on top of the sand. Mixed among the broken pieces were chunks, chips and flakes of chert, the agatized petrified wood Indians often used for stone points. Chert isn't native to the plateau and we only found it in conjunction with the pottery pieces.
The White Cliffs from the plateau above Tiny Canyon
An overhang, not a cave
Pottery and chert
In the excitement of finding the pottery and chert, I told Fred, 'Wouldn't it be a fitting end to the summer if we found a perfect arrowhead?' Not ten minutes later, he called me over and showed me this:
Half-inch long arrowhead
So, wish granted: the perfect ending to what's been a perfect summer.
