Little Florida Mountains - Bobcat Canyon

                                        

I had planned but failed to see Bobcat Canyon twice back in the spring. The first time, after a long day of hiking and exploring the cliffs and alcoves north of Bobcat, I ran out of energy and called it quits. The second time I had planned to drive much closer when stopped by some signs excluding me from my decided route. I probably could've adjusted fairly quickly if I had done a little more research, but punted the whole idea and moved on.

 Now we were back on the last weekend of November. We parked at the very end of Lewis Flats Road, although we could've driven the zero maintenance, very rough "way" along the fence line, we walked the mile south instead. Passing under the fence, I was initially dismayed, by the density of the low growing, thorny vegetation, that was going to prove nearly impossible to negotiate with our dogs. Luckily, we quickly lit upon a good road that led us nearly to the mouth of canyon. A short spur took us past an old mine and then onto a vehicle turnaround at the lip of the canyon. 

We began walking down a faint use trail through the mesquite into the stream course which was filled with ever increasing sizes of conglomerate boulders. When the dark gap in the wall of rock that was the entrance to the slot canyon appeared, we both let out a little gasp of delight. Unfortunately, my wife opted out of continuing  on the very uneven terrain from this point on.Truth be told it was almost all scrambling, with me having to lift my short legged dogs up to higher and higher levels. 

Twisted old junipers clung to impossible perches on blocky cliffs. Scrub oaks filled in wherever they could. In the bottom,  a few soapberry trees survived, with the very last of autumn clinging in the yellow leaves. 

Then, there was just rock and a bit of grass and greenery in the sand and gravel. Climbing more boulders, I hadn't gotten very far into the dark slot when I came upon an enormous chockstone wedged in the cliffs above a black pool of water, behind which was a waterfall, dry at the moment. 

The fact that there was any water at all in the canyon, six weeks after our latest precipitation event, would seem amazing, until considering the depth (>200 feet) and width (<15feet) at this juncture. Little sunshine makes its way in here, so the evaporation process is very slow, and water staining on the smoothed canyon walls indicates that this pool can be very deep at times.

  Above the falls the canyon turns. There must be at least one more falls ( height unknown) in this narrowest of passages and then, if Google Earth is a good indicator, Bobcat becomes a more moderate, (as in wider, drier and shallower) typical desert box canyon in its western portion. I already have it in mind to return in the spring when perhaps the the water will be flowing.

This is a wonderfully scenic, seldom seen (although not completely unvisited, as a few bits of trash  I passed by indicated) canyon, which if it were closer to a larger population center would probably be  overrun with people every weekend. As it was, except for the sounds of someone taking target practice in the far distance, we had the miles of to and from all to ourselves. 

Returning to our car late in the day, it took a long to time walk out of the shadow of the Little Floridas. The last of the sun rays finally warming us in the rapidly cooling desert flats.