Mt. Charleston - Stanley B Springs

A couple of months ago, Danielle and I took our last hike to the Mount Charleston area and hiked a fairly easy, yet not well know, trail called the Stanley B Springs trail. The hike starts out at an unmarked trailhead and follows a very well marked trail for about a mile or so until you come to the springs. You then come to a fork in the trail and you have to pick which one to follow. Once you pick one, the trail basically vanishes and you just follow your chosen gully for a while before turning back. I have no idea where each gully eventually goes, but it would seem like a cool exploration if we ever found ourselves there again with nothing else to do for the rest of the day.

As we neared the water, we realized we were not alone. Hopefully you can click on the picture to blow it up and find the deer. He's kind of hard to see, but he eyeballed us for a good 10 minutes before taking off. I'm pretty sure we were keeping him from getting a drink of water.

This is pretty much the point where we didn't have an official trail to follow.

More off-trial excursion. It wasn't too hard with the exception of a couple difficult spots.

This picture is looking directly downward at the ground. The water has cut out an interesting groove in the rocks.

There are supposed to be three abandoned mines as you follow the gully further on. This is the only one that I came to. I read previous to the hike that it is EXTREMELY dangerous to try to go in there. I wouldn't try anyway since it was full of water.