Wonderland of Rocks - 1.28.2023
We parked at the unpaved parking lot located a quarter mile NE of the very popular paved parking lot for Barker Dam... and started hiking on the Wall Street Mill Trail.
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On the Wall Street Mill Trail... along the southern border of the Wonderland of Rocks... with Queen Mountain on the right horizon.
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After hiking a total of .7 miles we have reached the Wall Street Mill... time to enter the Wonderland of Rocks.
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Entering the Wonderland of Rocks.
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After hiking a total of 1.3 miles I am looking back at Crazy Horse, Star Dancer and Denali Girl where they had scrambled up some boulders and explored some... but another rock formation had caught my interest and I took this photo of them as I headed for the the rocks that had caught my attention.
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Looking north in the Wonderland of Rocks... and looking very hard at the rock formation in the far left foreground.
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Heading for the rock formation that caught my attention... from here it looked like there might be a nice crack in the formation that would help me get to the top.
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Denali Girl took this photo of the crack (on the right) that had caught my attention.
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Here comes Crazy Horse (near the bottom of the photo) coming over to join me on this scramble... and I wouldn't have done this Class 3 scramble without him being present.
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Crazy Horse is coming up the crack to join me.
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Denali Girl took this photo of Crazy Horse and me as we begin our descent from the top.
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Crazy Horse begins heading down the Class 3 section near the top of our scramble... and he helped me negotiate this section of the down-climb.
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Catching our breath after surviving the Class 3 scramble.
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Continuing to hike north in the Wonderland of Rocks.
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Interesting terrain.
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Passing by some very interesting rock.
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Crazy Horse, Star Dancer and Denali Girl relaxing in a rock house!
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After hiking a quarter mile east in the Wonderland we are now hiking north again... heading for these two rock formations... we will have lunch on the rocks on the left.
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Heading up to our lunch spot.
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Crazy Horse leads the way up to our lunch spot.
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Watching Denali Girl do a dance move as she comes up to join us for lunch... after lunch Crazy Horse and I are going to see if we can get up to what looks an entrance to a tunnel near the top of the rock formation behind Denali Girl.
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After hiking a total of 2.2 miles we are having lunch in the Wonderland of Rocks.
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Looking at a good sized section of the Wonderland of Rocks from our lunch spot.
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Denali Girl took this photo of me on the rock formation over there... seeing if Crazy Horse and I can find a way up to what Star Dancer calls 'The Eye'.
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Working my way up what I would call the easy section of the scramble.
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Crazy Horse has joined me... time to scramble higher.
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I'm done with trying to go higher... but Crazy Horse was able to go up another 15 feet before calling it off... just too much exposure.
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Coming back down a bit we found this nice slot.
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The slot from the previous photo gave this view looking north.
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We survived the down climb of the rock formation housing 'The Eye' and have started tracing our steps back to the car... here looking back at where we were scrambling on the far left.
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Instead of staying in the Wonderland of Rocks we have decided to head east and leave the Wonderland to make for a faster trip back to the car.
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Dropping down to a very easy section of the Wonderland of Rocks as we head back to the Wall Street Mill.
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Heading back down to the Wall Street Mill.
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After hiking a total of 3.5 miles we have returned to the Wall Street Mill.
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On the Wall Street Mill Trail... and we can see the parking lot in the distance... the hike was a total of 4.1 miles, gaining 436 feet of elevation.
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