Hike to Havasu Riviera (Saturday, April 18th, 2020)

Since we couldn't be in Denver for our oldest daughter's baby shower today, we decided to take our minds off of it with a hike to Havasu Riviera.  

Havasu Riviera is a new housing development that is going in near the lake.  They have been working on the infrastructure for a long time.  Our intention was just to find a new fun hike, but it ended up leading us on a fun adventure.

We headed into Chemehuevi Wash where it heads out of town on the west side.  The wash is a combination of sand and rocks, so no matter which one you're in, it's a bit difficult to walk.



Our token lizard.

There are some gorgeous lupine in the desert right now.

Such a sandy wash!  Deep, loose sand.  It was really hard to walk in.

As we walked down the wash, we all of a sudden came upon this.  Our first glimpse of Havasu Riviera.  They filled in the wash to create a road to get from one side of the development to the other.  This culvert is huge!

Havasu Riviera sits on top of the huge man-made hills.  A friend of ours told us that all of the prime lots are sold, and the best lot sold for over 1 million dollars.  This is quite a development!  We had no idea.

There is still some beauty to the desert out here.

When we reached the bottom of the wash, we got our first glimpse of the lake.

Looking back at part of the development.

The development continues on the other side of the wash near the ranger station.  This is the part that you can see from the lake.

The mesquite trees are blooming!  So pretty!  But I'm sure this is part of the allergy culprit.

We climbed up on a hill to the north of the wash.  

More of the development.

The we crossed back through the wash and climbed a hill on the south side.  We sat on this knoll above the lake for quite awhile, just enjoying the beautiful day! 

Look at these tiny pink flowers, they are about the size of a pin head.

While we were sitting on the hill, Steve called our friends who were out on the lake today, so they stopped by to say "hi" from afar, and we took a few boat pictures for them, which was fun.

As it started getting hot, we decided it was time to head back.  We took a little side trip to get a better view of the new Havasu Riviera.  It is a huge area on both sides of Chemehuevi Wash.  We had no idea it was this big!

Then back through the huge culvert.  

Most of our hike down Chemehuevi Wash was through deep sand, which was pretty grueling, but what wasn't deep sand was really rocky.

We found another new desert flower that we have never seen before.  This one was gorgeous!

I don't understand how something this delicate can survive in the harsh desert.  Maybe that's why we haven't seen this one before.

After returning from our hike, we had a really great talk with our oldest daughter and son (in -law).  They are both doing great, and taking things in stride.  They aren't letting the cancelled baby shower and other crazy events bring them down, they are just taking each day, one day at a time.