November 18, 2010, 10:15 a.m.

Yesterday we drove the Burr Trail, about an 150-mile round trip.  We drove over the gorge we had driven the day before; not nearly as scary in the Honda!  Then we picked up the Burr Trail about 28 miles out of town.

This trail took us over red rock ridges, gray rock ridges, and into deep canyons, along rivers.  We traveled over High Desert again, with its Torrey Pines and junipers, and miles of sagebrush and rabbitbush.  We finally turned around about 5 miles into the area that is dirt road, just beyond where a gully wash ha washed out the road.  The NPS had repaired the road, but you could see the damage.

It's interesting: it takes only 1/4 inch of rain to create a flash flood!  And what damage such a flood can do.  There are warnings everywhere against driving in spots that are subjected to flooding when the weather is iffy.  Luckily for us, it's been beautiful every drive.

We had lunch overlooking the deep canyon where we had turned around.  We were in the High Desert, sitting in a grove of pines and junipers, the bright sun warming us up in the very cool breeze.

Imagining JOhn Burr, for whom the trail is named, driving his cattle up and over these rock ridges (500 feet in some cases), down into the canyons to the High Desert and its abundance of grass each spring and back each fall:  it's amaziing to think about.  No roads, of course, just John, a couple of cowhands, and his cattle, twice a year, traversing this terrain.  Hardy stock!

Today we hope, if the road is decent, to go across the plains to the Hole-in-the-Wall, a famous trail of early Mormons.  I'll explain it after I've seen it!