Rant n' Rave – Piss n' Moan – rambles and rants of an old man…

September 29, 2009

Charlie Manson and Me – part 7

Filed under: Charlie Manson and Me - part 7 — Bob @ 5:39 am

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Charlie Manson and Me – part 7

~Striped Butte Valley~

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 Once we got down into the Valley, and the trail leveled out, the drive was much more comfortable. The view of this magnificent Butte kept us looking at it for quite a long while.

Of course, I was quietly looking around with the thought of what a nice new home this valley will be when we settle here while I build that ramp to get back up to Mengel Pass if there wasn’t a way out of here! LOL 

Striped Butte Valley - 04/04/2008

Striped Butte Valley – 04/04/2008

  • Peak Type: Summit
  • Latitude: 35.948563
  • Longitude: -117.071996
  • Peak Elevation from sea level: 4,744 feet
  • Base to peak from ground surface: I think I saw that it is about 800 feet. Not sure.

.We saw several mules, assuming them to be descendants of the 20-mule-team era.

[Okay, I was wrong about the ‘mules’. They are actually feral burros (aka: donkeys. A mule is a completely different animal.). What do I know about burros? I know about Mustangs, Jaguars, Impalas, etc. I was a mechanic, after all!  I just checked a chart from 1974, and there were about 350 feral burros in Striped Butte Valley back then!  BTW… they’re ‘cute’, but are very hard on the environment. Thanks again to David A. Wright.] 

Striped Butte Valley feral burro - 10/1976

Striped Butte Valley feral burro – 10/1976

 

Striped Butte Valley - 3 feral burros - 10/1976

Striped Butte Valley – 3 feral burros – 10/1976

 Sadly, the next photo is the only shot I took of this amazing monolith! 

 
 
Striped Butte - 10/1976

Striped Butte – 10/1976

That shot, as are all my color shots from back then, are very recently scanned from 33-year-old Kodak transparencies (slides – Kodachrome and Ektachrome), and saved onto a photo-CD. I then had to reduce their size to be accepted into this blog software. So, the quality is grainy-looking. Also, I believe I was using an old Kodak Instamatic camera to shoot these color slides, so the quality would be low, anyway. Too bad I didn’t have a nice 20 mpx digital slr to use back then! Maybe I would have taken more pics! *sigh*

…similar to this one shot in July, 2008 (by someone else): 

Striped Butte - 07/14/08

Striped Butte – 07/14/08

See? Not much has changed in 32 years! LOL

I have found a lot of images of Striped Butte and its valley, each of which looks different from the other. And each one shows a beautiful rendition of Nature’s work.

We drove Eastward beside the Butte, passing the Geologist’s Cabin and at least one other dwelling. 

Geologist's Cabin - 04/16/2005

Geologist’s Cabin – 04/16/2005

We didn’t stop there, and of course didn’t take any pictures. We finally left Coyote Canyon Rd., which turned into Butte Valley Rd. We did come across this important bit of guidance:

Striped Butte Valley road sign - 10/1976

Striped Butte Valley road sign – 10/1976

The upper sign says ‘Goler Wash – 5 mi.’ 

Road sign and Striped Butte - 10/1976.

Road sign and Striped Butte – 10/1976.

.It’s nice to be sitting here at my computer, looking at all these places we went through way back then, using nothing more than a push of an index finger to travel along the route we drove in 1976.  But the excitement and wonder and yes, fear, of what lay around the next bend that could halt our homeward progress is missing, except in our memories.   I actually recall looking around at these tall mountains surrounding us in Butte Valley and thinking, “Yup!   I could enjoy living here for a while, looking at this gorgeous scenery!   Of course, the shrieking and hollering (sorry, Barb) would be a constant disturbance, but yeah, I could enjoy the scenery!   Of course, walking out would be the most sensible thing if we could not go any farther.  After all, it’s only about 53 TRILLION miles to civilization!  LOL  “WOW!   Lookit those mountains, Honey!”

Looking South from Striped Butte - 01/15/2007

Looking South from Striped Butte – 01/15/2007

“Yep, sure is purdy!”.

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Charlie Manson and Me – part 8

~It’s All Downhill From Here~

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