[Teufelhund]

A 5 1/2 hour jeep ride from "Hole In The Wall" got us into the backside of this large drainage system that runs for over a 100 miles. I spend quite a bit of time in this area, but had never gotten into the back side of it to explore some of it's side canyons. they where all just squiggly lines on the map.

Big mistake on my part, what look like little cuts turn into deep canyons that wind and twist for miles. You can see in the pictures the many caves we explored, there were dozens of them.

The best canyon we found had only one way in, check out the picture with the light shining though what looks like a needle eye. At the backside of that canyon (about 4 1/2 miles) is that large spring shown in one of the pictures, the water ran deep under the sand of the drainage till it got to that point and then it ran in pencil thick drizzels into the floor of the canyon. The picture doesn't do much for scale but the water was falling at least 30 feet.

All up and down that canyon where those little springs like you see in the picture that looks like a clear puddle with green grass growing around it, it was just an amazing place. You have to keep in mind that surface water is pretty scarce in that neck of the woods.

We saw lots of big mullies and two small herds of elk, too many grouse to count, we are going to hunt our General lLicences up there this year, it will be a good way to see how many folks go up there.

The two goof balls standing in the mouth of the cave are my boys 12 & 14, the older ones getting handy, he did most of the cooking and almost all the driving. I was just along for the ride and the navigating.

Teuf,

 

[RIKA]

Its absolutely beautiful. I'll dream of visiting that area tonight.

RIKA

 

[Garand]

Old army saying "Time spent in recce, is never wasted". Looks like the area could have interesting prospects.

 

[Teufelhund]

Here are the pictures of a couple of the springs and the canyons from other veiws

The big spring was intresting as hell, kind of a hidden oasis, we checked out the area very close for artifacts. If we had found any, we would of course left them in place as per BLM rules

We were talking about camp cooking awhile back, so here's a pic of chili fixens getting ready to hit the dutch oven. I had a good pic of my whole camp box laid out while I was cooking, but didn't keep it.I need to get some expanded memory for my camara, I didn't know I needed it, till I got to 18 pics and it said no more room dude.

Teuf,

 

[Magnum88C]

Man is that some cool terrain. Sounds like good hunting too!

 

[DJetAce]

I notice gunboob is ignoring this. Reality is pretty hard on fantacy. Teuf, that is one great trek! Well worth it.

 

[Teufelhund]

This is whats known as "Hole in the Wall" country and the trailhead is about an hour away from my place so we get there pretty often. I'm probually going back this week-end and I will get some pictures of the "hole in the wall", the hole is a break in the red, rimrock canyon wall that lets you into this huge system of canyons and drainages and creeks. You come off the high plains though the "hole" and this county runs up the slope of a mountain range.

It's much better horse country than jeep, but if your willing to walk, it works out ok. We where only going to be in three days and had targeted the area I wanted to explore. Thats really the only way to explore that kind of country, is to pick a small spot and spend a few days walking it. The terrain is so broken and you just never know what those side canyons hold till you walk them out. The potencial to make some outstanding finds is very high, of all the caves we were in, none of them had a foot print in the dusty floor, except for a couple that had cat and bear prints. The last two hours of jeep travel where on no road at all, I was picking a route off the map, my boy looked at the topo lines on the map where we were heading and said it looked like a malaria germ.

There was lots of indian activity here, and thier existents is well marked by artifacts, petrigraphs ect. the side canyons hide much of this stuff. Local folks have some really nice collections of stuff picked up over they years. The area was mostly used by outlaws during the early history of the west because it was easy to hide in there and had water to take care of stolen livestock, it was never good ranch country, water is too scarce and it would be tough to find your cows. Now it's mostly BLM and you can go anywhere and do about anything you want, the main canyon has the Middle Fork of the Powder River running though it and is a 4 star trout fishery, but the hike in there is so tough it doesn't lend it'self to guiding and is mostly a locals hangout.

By looking at th pictures you can tell that long range shooting is worthless in that country and a 11" AR would obviously be the best choice LOL. We are so lucky to have JD keeping us on the right path.

Teuf,