Mountain Roads Wandering and Camping 11/2-3

Headed out for the weekend of driving mountain roads and a night of camping with MiniMe. I did some of this same trip years ago with some buddies. We first made our way up to the Red Top lookout. I had planned a bit of a quicker route, but gates hampered that plan. We ended up having to take the long way round. The road was a bit worse for the wear than I remembered, but still very doable. High clearance wasn’t a necessity and neither was 4 wheel drive, though both were very welcome. At the parking area, I didn’t see any rigs that weren’t 4x4 or AWD and lowest slung were Subaru types of ground clearance.

At the parking area


Where we’re headed


At the top, looking north


At the top, looking south


We hiked back down to the pickup and headed down the hill to visit an unofficial local monument. For as many years as it’s been standing, it’s shocking to me this thing hasn’t been set ablaze by some high school partiers or local druggies.


After that we headed up to Haney Meadows.

On the way there, looking up


Looking down-ish


Things had changed a bit, but not a ton. We hopped out and had a look around.


Next we headed south to Lion Rock. Not a terrible drive, but it’s a WAY better drive to come from the south. Heading south you travel on 5 miles of rocky road the size of oranges to cantaloupes. It’s slow going and shakes everything in your rig.

Here’s at Lion Rock. That’s what the road surface looks like for five miles.


Camping spot at Lions rock that I passed on because I wanted to decrease the chance of real wind spoiling a good camp fire and relaxing evening.


We headed down the hill a ways and found a nice spot for the evening. Fell a tree, made fire, got out the pellet gun and had a great evening.


Not a bad evening view


The next morning we broke camp and headed to church in Ellensburg. Never been to church there, but I was pleasantly surprized at how many young families were in attendance. It really hit home how much of an older/retirement community I live in. After church, we headed back up Snoqualmie pass to have a look at some spots I had scouted on Google Maps. The couple we made it to had real promise. It won’t be much longer and these places will only be reachable by snow machine. We’ll probably have to wait until next year to make camp at some of these places.

One of the promising sites.


After making some notes of places that would be suitable for camping, we hopped back in the rig and hit the dusty trail home.

 

Great pics…
Winter is coming to the high country soon…

 

Beautiful! Can almost feel the mist on the top of that ridge. Thanks

 

Yup. It won't be long.

 

Lol ... us desert dwellers camp during autumn and winter

 

So do we PNWerners, we just camp at elevations where the snow is measured in inches, not feet.

 

Where is this?


Also, love all these photos!

 

Very cool!! Beautiful scenery and fresh clean air!

 

Willow Beach Arizona