194112-DesertMagazin.. - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

easily passable. Many of the visitors to
Kofa palm canyon park their cars at this
point. However, those who do not mind
the rocks can go another mile and a half.
Our party camped near the second
butte, 8.4 miles from route 95. The hike
from this point to Kofa palm canyon we
estimated at IV2 miles.
It was a dry camp, but dead ironwood is
plentiful in this area and as we sat around
the campfire that night, Bert Stitt told us
of the interesting experiments he and his
associates had made years ago for the department
of agriculture when he was stationed
at the Bard experimental farm near
Yuma. One of their assignments was to
convert the juices of certain desert shrubs
to rubber—and they had considerable success
in a small way. The project has never
Kofa canyon palms in fruit.
Photo by Emil Eger.
DECEMBER, 1941
There are many natural tanks in the
Kofa range which hold water for a
few days or weeks following rain
storms. Arthur Johnson (left) and
Rand Henderson slopped for lunch
beside this tinaja during a recent
ascent of the peak.
been considered commercially feasible,
however.
It was an October night, just cool
enough for a sleeping bag to be comfortable
without extra blankets. We were up
before sunrise next morning with flapjacks
for breakfast and lunches in our
packs.
Kofa massif loomed ahead like a gigantic
fortress, vertical walls rising hundreds
of feet from the floor of the desert, sharpangled
points silhouetted at the top like
sentry towers.
The closer we approached the mountain
the more I wondered how members of the