THE LADDER TRAIL IN THE PAINTED MOUNTAINS

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Denny can't really walk any distance, so Irene took me on a hike. Irene is a friend I have met from Canada.  She is 67 and in very good shape. She does the exercise class every day and hikes alot. I actually drove our  truck because it is a 4 wheel drive. She has a little PT Cruiser and to get there you need a 4 X 4. This is the first time I have driven except to go to the laundry in the park. It was about an hour drive from here. The last several miles was a really rough, washboard road. Quite the drive for my first time. There are ladders that you have to climb up and down on to get to different areas. It was quite the advanced hike, but I did fine. A little tired the next day, but not really sore.

                     
                                 The stick to my left is my walking stick. I threw it up so I could use my hands

Whew! Finally got to the top of the ledge.

What a good looking hiker that is!

There she is again. We were almost to the top

Irene, my hiking and geocaching buddy

OOPS! I started walking down but it was easier to slide on my  butt.  Irene, who is older, WALKED. She is in better shape than I am. This is where we started down the mountain

In this area there were many many little piles of rocks. Indians started doing this thousands of years ago to show the way. We found these rock formations  all over the southwest.  We also made our own pile. It is fun tradition

To get here,  you had to slide down about 6-7',   and  then hold on to a rope (because it is so steep) for about 10'  to actually get to the ladder.

Not sure how  many miles the hike was, but it took 2 1/2   hours to get to the top of the trail and then 1 1/2 hours to get down. Good Day. It was hot, but we had a little breeze  and there was alot of shade inside the canyon walls.

WINDMILL TOUR--VERY INTERESTING

March 27, 2012

There are lots of windmills around here, so Denny wanted to take a tour. People had told us that they heard it was a very interesting, but nobody had gone on one. They are missing out. It was very informative.  There are 41 wind farms around here, the first started in the early 80's.  There are 5 generations of windmills, most only last 20-30 years.  In Palm Springs they can only be 300' tall. In other parts of the US and the world there is no height restriction. Even tho this is the perfect area to have them because of all the wind, Palm Springs fought it, thought they would be too ugly ad noisy.    They cost about 2 million to build and it takes 8-9 years to return a profit. The other tour we took had different statistics, but I believe the windmill tour has  the correct facts.  They are noisy, but they usually are built away from the population. Also with new technology, they are alot quieter.

Windmills as far as you can see

The building behind the wings is about the size of our 5th wheel (35'x12'x12') and holds 20 tons of equipment.  The only difference is our RV is only 8' tall, but it is 12' wide when the slides are out.

I'm sure you all remember Enron. The windmills above were discontinued before 1980. Because these were  cheaper to build, Enron  greased a few palms and built these in the early 80's.  MONEY TALKS!

The ones on the left of the picture  were built in the early 80's. As they build new ones, the older ones are taken down.

These power lines are going to areas all over Southern California and Las Vegas to supply electricity. The electricity from the windmills goes underground to a substation. These lines carry it out.

The blue area in front of the windmills are solar panels. It looks like a lake.  They are starting to put some in to use when there is no wind.  Of course, that doesn't happen often. It is windy 70% of the time. The windmill people don't like solar because it takes up much more of a footprint on the ground than windmills and produces not even half  the electricity.  The footprint of each windmill is very, very small.  Also, wherever there are solar panels on the ground, no wildlife will go there. Even if they are taken out, it is barren of wildlife. Not sure why.