Living the Dream...: Monday, January 28, 2013 (Rockhouse Trail, Borrego Springs, CA)

Another beautiful start to the day as the sun comes up and and lights up the fresh snow on the mountains...what the heck...SNOW! It was forecast to be a fairly cool day with highs only up to 59F/15C.

We are going to do another hike today. After researching all of the info we had on the park, Steve chose the trail..."Calcite Mine" described as 4 miles round trip..."This is a steep, difficult hike with no shade." Yippee...sounds like fun...just reading the description made me tired!

After getting the backpack ready, we headed out going east on highway 22. The trail head was at mile marker 38 with parking on a pullout on the side of the highway.

(Remember to click on picture to enlarge)

It was 11:30 when we were off..."walk north to the jeep road and follow it up to the old mine area."

The views were just spectacular!

Made it!

Our previous camp at Ocotillo Wells SRVA...

A piece of calcite...

We decided to hike up to the top of this plateau...where it had been mined...

Come on Di...you can do it! Can you see me?

Salton City in the distance...

Lunch time...what a view!

Salton Sea on the left...on a clear day you can apparently see Mexico...

That dark cloud up there is the main reason that we decided we'd better get our move on and head back down.

The San Andreas fault runs past the Salton Sea. The most visible evidence today of the turbulence happening beneath the Earth's surface in the area is the white plumes of steam coming from the smokestacks of several geothermal energy plants, which are using the heat naturally produced underground to create electricity.

Time to head back down...The brown mound on the left is where we just came from...

Dust Devils in the distance...

We were back at the truck just before 2:30...after a 4.8 mile hike up into the mountains. Another fabulous day! Time to head home. This is the dry lake bed in the distance behind our boondocking area...