Losing my way — several times

The trail to Wild Horse Window — a pair of caves with a hole in one roof — starts with a clear, well used path down into a wash and out again. From there it crosses a large section of bare rock with gullies, drop-offs, and dead ends. This is the trickiest part of the trail. There’s no path and only occasional cairns, with at least one of them seeming to have been placed by someone hoping to send you in the wrong direction.

It’s up there somewhere

I don’t have a trail app, like Gaia or AllTrails, so I used Google satellite view to keep my bearings. But there’s only so much detail in those photos, especially since I was out of cell range and couldn’t use 3D view. So I did a lot of backtracking, including going all the way back to the wash. That’s not a huge deal, but the way to the Window is all uphill. So it was up and down and up and down.

Maybe the correct trail is over there

Sometimes there are footprints in occasional sandy patches to confirm you’re on the right path — or that others were just as lost

And except for a small group going the other way, I was alone. No one to follow. Or blame.

But I got there. Eventually. The odd thing is there are plenty of cairns near the destination, where the trail was already rather obvious.

Are you lookin’ at me?

I thought the return trip would be easy. All I had to do was keep heading toward the Rolling Steel Tent, which I could see back at the trailhead. But I found myself backtracking again and again. I started wishing there were occasional paint dots on the ground like I have seen at a couple of other bare rock trails. Oh well, I made it back.

This way out, right?

Wild Horse Window is about a two-mile round trip. My wanderings were probably 3.5 miles. It was worth it. Whee, a special route for more hiking fun! Good thing I had plenty of water. And the weather was perfect.