Slot Canyons and Turkeys 11/11/11

Today was a very big day...11/11/11, Lange Thanksgiving, and our first adventure in a Slot Canyon! Because it was Thanksgiving and we had to get back in time to cook, we headed out early for another new hike. This time up to the Calcite Mines, which included a loop through a slot canyon. It was sooo cool, I had never been in one before! And of course, crazy Andrew was in effect, steering us away from the beaten path and onto our own adventure through the mountains. This time it all worked out, and we created our own loop out of what would have been a couple out-and-back trails...very awesome! Then home again for the best turkey dinner in the history of Thanksgiving...A Cider Brined Turkey. Josh was the head chef in charge of the meal, and the rest of us sous chef helped out. We had quite a delicious spread!

Andrew, heading up into the Calcite Mine mountains.




On the way up, we could look down and see the slot canyon that would be our return route...it looked cools, we were getting excited!

Cool Swiss cheese looking rocks all over the place!

Stacia and John heading into the upper section of the slot canyon.

A little inverted rock climbing for John.

Stacia, John, and Katharine...the walls are getting higher and narrower.

Andrew, plotting his escape route in case of flooding.

Brother-sister on a grand adventure.

It's really getting cool now as John goes in deeper.

Smooth, narrow, high walls...no escape routes here!

Stacia and Andrew hiding around the curves.

We climbed out of the top of the slot canyon, and started forging our own path towards the Calcite Mines.

The newlyweds!

Me in the Swiss cheese rock.

John, looking back towards the valley floor.

Andrew and John after climbing up to the top of the big rock (Andrew's idea, of course)!

We found a nice spot for a picnic.

There turned out to be a Jeepers (or really Bronc-ers) convention at the top today. It was cool that every single Bronco was a different color.

Hiking up one last peak for a full vista view of our route back down.

Such cool territory.

John and Andrew, trying to find their own route down again...Stacia and I vetoed!

But we did all agree that this rock needs to get explored next time.

This rock looked like a statue, with the side view of a prehistoric skull on top.

Back into the slot canyon, this time the lower section that led back out. So many cool waterslides and really narrow sections!

Dad and John.

Back at home, Chef Josh was busy cooking up a storm of the most delicious food!

The whole family gathered and serving up the Thanksgiving feast and celebrating another great trip to Borrego!

Back at DeAnza 11/10/11

DeAnza Country Club is the golf course that my Aunt's house is located on, and back when my grandparents owned the place and had a membership, we got to play there all the time. Unfortunately, we haven't been allowed to play there in years, which was a bummer. But this year, they allowed outsiders to play one single day for as many holes as you wanted. Boy did we take advantage. We waited until John and Stacia came for our special day, we postponed Thanksgiving to the day that had rain in the forecast, and we signed up for the earliest tee time they had. We ended up playing 27 holes, which is the most I've ever played in one day!! It was good to be back on that course, and it was really cool because we saw a whole herd of Big Horn Sheep right on the fairway!

The Big Horn Sheep were trying to sneak onto the course and the mower guy was trying to chase them away so they wouldn't eat the grass!


They ran away for a bit, but came right back.

Getting a closer view.

They had a lot of admirerers and didn't seem too afraid.

Me and the sheep and my favorite Borrego golf had!

Split Mountain Hike 11/9/11

After three days in a row of golf, we decided to give ourselves a break, and headed out for a new hike. The Borrego guidebook had 100 hikes to choose from, but this one over at Split Mountain had been recommended to us in the past, so we decided it was high time to check it out. The hike was called Elephant Knees, which I didn't understand until we finally got to the end and I realized the mud slides down the mounain looked like the knees of an elephant! It was not an especially difficult hike, but very cool and pretty.

Josh and Andrew walking through the wash, luckily it wasn't raining.

Katharine and Josh with the Elephant Knees in the background.


It was really cool walking on the dried mud, hearing and feeling it crackle under your feet.

The hike was supposed to end on the mountain behind me, but my dad thought it looked to easy and boring, so we decided to hike up this mountain instead. It looked really doable along the ridges to the far left...

This was the mountain we were suppsed to climb up...see, really easy.

Here's where we did climb up, but half way up it got really steep and the dried mud for the foot and hand-holds just crumbled right out from under you.

Josh got the highest and made a safety call that it was not a good idea to go further...you can see the top though, we got close!

Looking down at the Wash we walked through, leading back to the Split Mountain.

Fun with desert shadows.

Andrew scrambling back down after getting a little stuck up high.

Luckily we all made it down safely to enjoy our nice picnic.

Josh learned first hand today about how my father is a daredevil who tried to kill us as children...he's happy I survived!

Driving back home through the Split Mountain.

Cool, steep wall formations.

A better view of how the mountain is split.

Thanksgiving Week in Borrego 11/5/11

In the typical Lange fashion of celebrating holidays when it's convenient for us, we headed down to Borrego Springs for our annual Thanksgiving celebration two weeks early. And let me tell you, it was awesome! I didn't compete with anyone for getting the time off, there weren't millions of other travelers on the roads, and the golf courses were empty...a successful week all around. Also, we were able to stay for 9 days, rather than the usual 3, so we had plenty of time to go on some great hikes, as well as get in all the golf we wanted. I'll post all the pictures on separate days, so below was Day 1, just me and Josh had arrived so far, and we did a great hike up Palm Canyon to the Oasis (one of my favorites as a kid).

Josh arriving at the Palm Oasis.


Looking back down the canyon we just came up.

The cluster of Palm in the oasis have never been trimmed, so they are all overgrown and its like a cool little fort or hideout.

Big hairy trees!

We found out this year that there is acutally a second oasis further up the canyon, so Josh and I decided to continue on...

There was actually a creek and quite a bit of greenery...

And this really cool swirly red rock.

Josh and some Ocatillo.

Back close to home, we went for a tour of the desert art work...there were some new additions this year, including these camels.

My favorite new one was the serpent that crossed under the road. We never got a great picture of it, but you can sort of see it in the distance here on the left.

Desert full moon.