Friday morning we decided to head to 'big tank', a point of interest marked on the Arizona GPS Topographical Map about 2.7 miles from the back gate of the park. We saw a couple of woodpeckers on a cactus on our way to the gate.
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We followed an ATV trail which had signs indicating direction and distance to various points (not including the big tank). We headed east to '4 corners', then south to 'Inspiration Point', then a bit over to 'Assay Road', which the etrex showed as Burnt Sage Road. We were about 2.5 miles out at that point, so we decided to return along Burnt Sage Road toward the highway. We thought the area looked good for boon-docking, and shortly saw a short side route to a firepit. Just after that, there was a BLM 14 day camping sign. It might be a good place to camp in the November or March (the elevation is about 2700 ft here). About halfway back, we came to an ATV trail heading back toward the RV park. Our route was about 4.6 mi. in total. We only saw one ATV on the route, but there was lots of evidence of people having hiked the route previously. We saw a couple of hares en-route. Back near the park, we noticed the desert golf course, and even saw a couple just coming off the course.
On Saturday, we took Highway 89 north through Congress (el. 3036 ft), then up over the Weaver Mountains past Congress through Yarnell (el. 4780). At Kirkland Junction, we stayed on 89, instead of heading around the Bradshaw Mountains as the GPS recommended. It soon became obvious why the other route might be faster, as there were many 20 to 25 mph corners as the highway wound its way through the mountains. We peaked at 6000 feet before winding down to Prescott, Arizona's mile-high city at 5300 ft. The drive through the Prescott National Forest is quite beautiful, with a bit of snow on the north faces of some of the hills. Once in Prescott we picked up the walking tour guide for downtown ($1). Most of Prescott was rebuilt after a devastating fire on July 4, 1900. There are some nice buildings on the tour, and a few others that weren't on our list. We walked along at a good pace as it was only about 14C, the wind coming off the hills had a bite to it, and Joan had forgotten to bring long-sleeved top to put over her short sleeved shirt.
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| Worlds Oldest Rodeo 1888 |
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| Hassayampa Inn |
After a bit of shopping and some sandwiches, we took the long route on County 10 which the GPS had recommended. It went over a 6014 ft. summit just above town, then followed a ridge slowly down into the Skull Valley, where we came to the BNSF RR route that goes past our RV park. It doesn't go over either range of mountains we did going to Prescott. When we got the end of County 10 in Kirkland, we headed west toward Hillside. From Hillside, we could have taken Date Creek Rd, which is a gravel route going along the BNSF route toward Congress. However, we wanted to go to Bagdad, so we headed northwest on Highway 96 the full 22 miles of its route, ending in Bagdad. About halfway to Bagdad, we crossed the Santa Maria River, which has water in it. There were people boon-docking along the river. There are a couple of large copper and gold mines in Bagdad (pop about 2000) which are still active. We couldn't any signs to the Bagdad Museum (marked on our back-roads map) or a visitor center either on the GPS or on any signs in town.
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| Tribute to mine workers |
We headed about 10 miles west to Highway 93, the Joshua Forest Parkway of Arizona, which goes from Phoenix to Kingman, then on to Vegas. Along the way we saw a lot of people with pickups that looked like they might be hunting. (need to check when hunting season is in this are). We also saw these signs, which made us wonder what it would be like if the water flooding the road ever froze.
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| Interesting combination |
At highway 93 north about 6 miles looking for Nothing, another marker on our backroads atlas. We got to the call box marked in the atlas, and continued a bit further up the highway, and lo and behold, we found Nothing, a deserted gas station site.
Time to head back to the trailer, through the Joshua trees along the highway.
Sunday was drizzly, and then thundered overnight.
Monday, we drove to the Hassayampa River Preserve only to find out that it is only open from Wednesday to Sunday. Who figured?! Guess it makes sense that they would have two days off during the week instead of the weekend.
Tuesday we went to the Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park which commemorates a group of 20 fire fighters 19 of whom died when a fire turned back and trapped them on Yarnell Mountain in 2013. The park opened last November.
See
www.granitemountainhotshotsmemorial.org for profiles of the hotshots who died, and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarnell_Hill_Fire for a description of the events of the fire.
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| The crew |
The 2.55 mi one-way trail climbs from highway 89 (west bound lane) between Congress and Yarnell from an elevation of 4318 to 5640 feet behind Glen Ilah and Yarnell. About every 600 feet there is a plaque commemorating each of the fire-fighters who died in this tragedy.
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| One of the 19 plaques along the route |
The boulder structure of these granite mountains is quite interesting. The trip took us just over 5 hours as we knew it was climb and didn't want to wear ourselves out too quickly. It was cool when we started but we quickly warmed up, and then the sun came out. We enjoyed lunch on the bench at the overlook of the memorial, at the top of the trail. We opted not to go the 750 ft down to the memorial behind Yarnell.
We had seen a sign on our way through to Prescott that there is no access to the memorial through town. Somebody with private property must have gotten tired of people going across their land to the memorial.
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| Memorial |
Regardless, it was a very nice hike up through the boulder fields. On the way down, we encountered a State Parks employee who turned out to be the manager of Alamo Lake State Park, about 50 miles east of here. He told us that the point we met at had become a spot for para-gliders to use once the Parks built the trail. He also told us that there was a mountain lion who patrols this area, as well as numerous Arizona green rattlers, who were not out now as it is still too cold. The scenes of the valley were amazing, from the dairy farm below the highway, to Congress, the RV Park, and even Wickenburg. On the other side of the hill, we could see Yarnell, Peeples Valley and Wilhoit all which we saw on the way to Prescott.
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| Some of the many charred trees |
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| We climbed up to the bench above then around the hill it was on |
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| View of the trail on its way to the bench |
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| View of the valley below the trail |
The actual memorial is in the valley below the hill. We opted not to walk down the 400 ft of elevation, after having climbed up 1000 feet already.
On the way back down the trail we saw a little white butterfly with black and orange tipped wings. We were only able to get a picture of it while it sat on a boulder with its wings closed. It would have been nice if it had spread its wings while sitting there.
Wednesday we went to the Hassayampa River Preserve, ($5 each). It is a beautiful little oasis in the middle of the desert where the river actual runs above ground. The Preserve has a little lake in it. We walked about 3 miles of trails, along the river, up to a viewpoint from a little hill, and around Palm Lake. We sat on the bench at the end of Palm Lake watching a Vermillion Flycatcher flit about. Quite a contrast from walking up the hill to the firefighter memorial.
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| River Ramble loop |
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| Cottonwoods with leaves starting - from the lookout |
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| Palm Lake |
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| Vermillion Flycatcher |
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| Hummingbird feeder |
On Thursday, we did a 6 mi walk east of the RV park, wandering past Lonesome Saguaro, truly the only saguaro in sight, then down into the St. Martinez Wash at a cairn. From there we followed the wash south until we got to Burnt Sage Road. We walked up Burnt Sage Road almost to the highway, to see what the road was like, as there was BLM 14 day camping allowed along the road.
Near a water tank, we saw another reminder that you cannot camp within 1/4 mile of a water source, due to wildlife use. We saw 2 different tanks along the road, and occasionally, could see the narrow pipeline that runs from a large tank near the highway, all the way out to a tank in the valley close to the wash. Close to the highway, we followed an ATV trail which petered out. We worked our way across to a trail we were on last week, only to encounter a steep wash. When we found a spot to get into the wash, we noticed footprints going up the wash toward the RV park. That worked fine until we got the barbed-wire fence on the edge of the RV park.
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