Draper Points 11 and 12

Just as a point of reference, these are the numbered points on the northern half of Draper Lake (image on the right). Today I visited Points 11 and 12. The morning started out frosty but began to warm about half-way to noon. It looked like it would hit 60°F (about 15C). I headed out just before noon and it was okay with lower 40s (6C) but just before I got down to Post and SE 74th, thick clouds rolled in and the temperature stopped rising. It didn’t get any colder, but it also didn’t get much warmer the rest of the day.

Point 11 is very near to the main road, just a short ride up to the parking circle. The path down to the shore wasn’t quite ridable for me, so I dismounted. This point is way up in the pocket and sees less traffic than others. However, it was nice enough. Most of the shore is a drop-off about a meter above the current waterline. This first image from the point (above left) shows the one thin slice of dirt slope. This next shot shows the southernmost tip of the point, painted brightly by a bombing inland seagull.

From there I took the shore trail around the eastern side, which has seen a lot of foot traffic. It brought me back to the old road, now just a bare dirt and gravel section that goes nowhere. At the opening to the trail for Point 12, a sign indicated this was a recovering preserve and no wheels allowed, only feet, hooves and paws. That meant I had to climb on up to the main road and ride the asphalt out onto the point. All the points visible to me today had been cleared of underbrush, but it was only a half-assed job (above left). There were lots of stumps left poking out of the ground, and some of the cuttings had not been hauled off. Even prison labor usually does a better job than that.

On my last adventure, I shot a picture of Point 12 from across the water, and the bluff was visible. This next image (above right) shows the bluff on the western side of the point is sloped out on the end, but if you could walk farther back up the shore, it would become quite steep. I didn’t want to walk too far away from my bike because there were other folks out and about on this point today, and the trail was too narrow to push my bike (again, riding wasn’t permitted). But out on the point itself, the shore is virtually all rock. On the left here is the western edge of the point.

The point itself is a large sloping rock shelf (right). The advantage of overcast skies is that you don’t have to worry about where the sun is. This place has seen a lot of human traffic, with all kinds of graffiti carved into the soft red sandstone. You can see from this image on the left, taken from farther around the wide point, that the whole thing is rocky. Not so easy to see is several shallow rocky spots just off shore. Despite low wind speeds, it was a lovely noise of water splashing against the rocks.

This last shot is looking around the eastern side of the point. I did walk the trail just a short ways and it’s quite passable on foot. Maybe I’ll come back sometime with a vehicle I can lock safely and walk this are more. This excursion didn’t take too long, and I was on my way out in less than an hour after I got out to the lake area.