Week ending Mar 29, 2018 Route66 BLM

On Thursday, after posting last weeks blog, we packed up the trailer and drove across the Colorado River to Bullhead City, south to Mohave Valley, then east on Boundary Cone Road to Route 66, and south to about mile 18 on the Oatman Road.  This section of Route 66 between Oatman and Topock (on I-40 to the south) is fairly busy during the day, with a lot of motorcycle riders enjoying the scenic, curvy route.  Once it gets dark though, it gets pretty quiet.

Friday we hiked up a couple of ATV trails to mines.  The roads were marked on the AZ topo map, but the mines weren't.  We started off by walking up our road to an airstrip about 1/4 mile from us.   Even though the topo map didn't have any mines marked on the trails , there were mines at the ends of both trails   We have come to the conclusion that there must be some kind of dig at the end of any trail in this area.

Tailings pile

On the way back, we came back to route 66 on a different route to see if we could find a way to get the trailer out to the airstrip.  There was another trailer parked at the south end of the airstrip.

Saturday, we walked toward Black Range Mine, which we had done last fall.  However, this time, we took the trail higher on the hillside across the valley above the mine.  Along the way we saw an interesting bit of quartz.

Quartz with greenish mineral

There was a bit of dig on the hill above the road.  The road carried on about half a mile further to a point where there was room for vehicles to turn around.   We got great views of Black Range from above.  At the end of the road, we could see down into a valley to the south.

We noticed a modern 'petroglyph', probably a claim marker.

Modern petroglyph

On the way back, we took a different route out to avoid a steep trip down through a wash.  On this route, we found what would be a great campsite, as it had been widened, leveled out, with rock walls on the downhill side.  Too bad there is no way to get a decent sized trailer back there. 

Level site

A bit further on, we found a drone crash site.   It seems someone had been scouting the area from the air when their drone crashed (gently) or just ran out of power, and they couldn't locate it.   It seems you might need a second drone in case you need to search for your first one. 

We could see down into the valley with the Black Range Mine road.   We had seen the lower tunnel in the picture below, but hadn't notice the upper right tunnel, running perpendicular to the lower one. It is amazing how many shafts were dug in this valley

Shafts at different angles

Sunday morning we did a shorter walk, to a mine site fairly low in the valley.  We didn't take our camera, as we weren't planning on going far, but we got a couple of pics on our phone.

Foundations

Shaft

On the way back to the trailer, we encountered a couple that were camped at  the north end of the airstrip.  They had been out walking a bit with their St. Bernard.   They had forgotten to bring the dogs leather booties, so it had gotten some thorns in the pads of its paws, so was a little distressed.   The fellow went back to get his jeep to take the dog back to their camper.   We watched Jennifer win the Womens' World Curling Championship.

Monday, was a windy day, with gusts up to 25 mile per hour.   Our solar panel with the homemade legs had flipped over in the wind, because the legs are too close to the center  of the panel.   Fortunately, it wasn't damaged.    We moved the panels closer to the center of the trailer, which protected them from the wind, and put out our 7 gallon water containers, to help stabilize them.   In the afternoon, we watched the Nascar race from Martinsville that had been postponed on Sunday due to a snow storm.  Monday overnight, the winds were forecast to gust to 35 mph, so we made sure the panels were laying flat and the chain holding them was well weighted, and one of our water containers in front of the new panel to keep it from flipping over again.

Tuesday, we went into Mohave Valley for a few groceries and propane and a couple of gallons of gas for the generator.  After putting them in the trailer, we took Route 66 back thru Oatman, then across the hills toward Kingman.   We came out onto I-40 about 5 miles south of Kingman.  No services at this corner, but truck repair shops and other light industrial.  From there, we went south on I-40 to Yucca, which was our reason for doing this route.  There is a Ford Proving Grounds at Yucca, but the only services there are the Honolulu Club and the "R" Burger Joint.  We thought we would fill up with gas there, but no fuel available.  About 5 miles further on, we stopped at a rest area.   Further on, we got to the services at the junction of AZ 95, north of Lake Havasu.   We decided the fuel was too expensive there, so carried on to the Shell  station in Golden Shores on the Oatman Highway.  It was more expensive, but we fueled up anyway, and had ice cream for lunch.   Then we drove up the Oatman Highway (Route 66) to our campsite.   Altogether a bit of disappointing trip.

Wednesday, we walked about 2 miles towards a point marked as Adams Mine.  The road carried left and past the location marked for the mine, climbing slowly up to a mine in a little angle of the hills.   Along the way, we saw a nice little cactus garden.

Cactus Garden

  About 10 vultures circling on the updrafts from the valley.   

Vultures on the updraft

There is a long straight horizontal tunnel at this mine.  We walked in over 50 yards and still couldn't see the end. 

On the way back, a phainopepla posed nicely for us. 

On Thursday, we decided to take the route to the right side of the wash that Adams Mine was on.
On the way, we got a pictuer of the 'Teddy Bear' on a ridge. 

Further up that canyon, we could see both mines, Adams marked with a tailings pile, and Wrigley Mine marked by a water tank.

Adams tailings on lower left, Wrigley in front of the cliffs in center

We got past the tailings for Adams Mine, and couldn't see a route to it, so carried on for a bit.  This was a steady climb, and Joan was starting to feel overheated.  The E-trex showed that Wrigley Mine was still about .7 miles, and about 800 feet higher, so Joan decided she would turn back before she got too overheated.  John carried on to Wrigley Mine.  It turned out to be only about 400 feet higher, so Joan could have made it okay by resting a few times to cool down.

 Wrigley is an interesting shape.  It is in a V formed by the cliffs above, and the tailings pile form a distinct V shape, with the top of the pile only about 10 feet wide under the cliffs.   There is a path that goes through bushes in the intersection of the V, at comes out on a ridge below the water tank.     

V shaped tailings pile below Wrigley

water tank, looking back toward Wrigley

Tunnel hidden in bushes

Tunnel

View west into Mohave Valley

On her way back to the trailer  Joan saw 4 burros, whose fresh hoof prints we had seen on the road.   Unfortunately, she didn't have a phone with her to take pictures, but she thought they looked like the ones we had seen in the fall one valley to the north. 

The new solar panel has been working well.  On Wednesday, it produced 60 amp hours of power, while the old panel did 45 amp hours.   The two of them are handling our boon-docking needs, and we have only run the generator a couple of times this week,  the second time to run the furnace for about half an hour on morning.

Week ending Mar 22, 2018 Laughlin Nevada

Friday we went over to the visitor center to check on trails nearby.   Then we walked the trail from the visitor center across the highway to a parking area, and back.  After lunch, we went to the RV center next door to look at some toy hauler layouts.

Saturday was a lazy day. We did  walk around the RV park.  It is a large park, built up the side of the valley, with about 4 different levels.

Sunday was curling and Nascar.

Monday, we got half a dozen lemons from some neighbours who had brought them from their trees in California.  They can't take them back through agriculture. 

Then we drove a couple of miles north to park on Davis Dam Road, then walked about half a mile cross country over washes and around small hills to a road running along the edge of a roll of hills.

Across to the hills the mines are in

We carried up that road for a while until we got to the cut-off to Homestake Group Mine.  There wasn't a lot there, but two shafts had the best covers  that we had seen.  We wondered whether these were built because someone got hurt in one of the shafts.

 Shaft cover

  The shafts went straight down, and looked quite deep.  
 

Looking down into the shaft

  From there we found an old mine road that went at an angle back to the road, but further on.  It was a good shortcut to Wilie Inspiration Mine.  There was ruins of an old building that was about 9 yards by 15 yards. 

Wilie Inspiration Mine

The actual mine location was just a tailings pile with no shaft that we could find.  They must have filled that one in.   On the way back to the truck, we took a slightly different route cross-country since it was pretty steep where we had come to the road.  At one point, John went over to some boulders to lean on to shake some grit out of his boots.  It just happened that there were petroglyphs on two of the boulders.   There is a large petroglyph site about ten miles north of here that we had explored a few years ago, but we were not aware of these two rocks.

Tuesday, morning we drove out on Oatman highway to verify the location of a decent boon-docking spot we had seen in the fall.  We were surprised at how many RVs were boon-docking along this stretch.

Mid afternoon,we went over to the Riverside Casino, played the slots for about an hour, and netted about $25.  Then about 4:45 we took advantage of the two free buffet tickets that we got when we paid for our week in their RV park.  The food was decent.

Wednesday, we did some prep for some more boondocking.  We did a walk up the hill in the RV park.  We had a nice chat with a couple from Edmonton that are going home to put their house on the market to become full time RVers.   They have been spending a lot of their winters in Mexico.

Week ending Mar 15, 2018 Wikieup

Friday morning we drove about 15 miles south to Burro Creek Rec Area and Campground.  We tried to walk down to the creek behind the picnic area, on a beautiful old stone staircase.   We couldn't get through to the creek since there was a bit of water running in  a channel, and heavy bushes.  

Lava layer over sandstone

We did see a heron on a ledge across the river looking for fish in the creek.

We could hear people across the creek, so we headed back to the road and across the bridge.

Burro Creek from bridge

The cliffs on the other side of the river are too steep to walk along that side.   We carried up the hill across the bridge for a bit to a side road heading south.  Shortly down that road we came to a 'entering private property' sign.  Shortly after we could see Shipp Ranch in the valley below us, with  a few people working in the yard, and a herd of horses.  We returned to the 'main' road, and then back down to the campground.  We walked around the campground loop and found a couple of trail entrances off that loop.  Since we had already done a couple of miles we decided we would come back another day to try one of them.

Saturday was a dreary, drizzly day.  We walked down to the Trading Post, basically a better than average service station store, for some crackers.  On the way back we stopped in at Dazzo's to pick up a Chicago style hot dog and veggie burger.  They were pretty busy, but it was worth the wait. 

Sunday was curling and Nascar.

Monday we did a 4 mile return hike down Kaiser Canyon to Warm Springs.  We parked on a pullout next to the highway, and walked down a road to below the bridge.  There we saw a parking area we could have driven to.

Kaiser Canyon from under the highway bridge

Kaiser Canyon wash

As we walked down the canyon, we could hear either songs of two different kinds of birds, or perhaps a male and female.  We eventually got a distant view of one bird on top of a tall saguaro up on the side of the canyon.

About halfway down the canyon, we saw a tent and a couple of pickups.   We had no idea how they got to that point, but we found out when we got to the warm springs pool.  There were a couple of guys in it, who warned us they had no clothes on.   They told us that they had driven their pickup on a very rough road, but that it would have been easier to do the hike.  The pool is small pool, so we carried on a few hundred yards down the canyon to Burro Creek.  The canyon there is quite beautiful.

Burro Creek flowing down from the campground

Burro Creek heading down to the Big Sandy River

When we got back to the pool, there was a different person in it, quite a contrast, as he had only taken his socks off, and was well protected from the sun.   

We chatted with him for a while.  He knows the area quite well.  Then we returned back up the canyon.   It is an easy trip, as the wash is quite wide for hiking, until we got back under the bridge.  Then you clamber up a steep slope, and we missed the trail we came down, so it was a challenge.    Joan was tired from going up the slope on hands and knees, using the rocks for grip, so John walked up the hill to the highway to get the truck.  When we got back to the trailer, Joan realized she didn't have her sweater.

Tuesday morning, our first task was to see if we could find Joan's sweater. She figured that she must have left it where she was waiting the day before.  Since this was only a few miles down the road, we headed back to the parking area under the bridge to go look for it.  As we pulled up, we saw a couple of people walking down the trail.  We noticed them stopping and picking up Joan's sweater, so we yelled to them that it was ours, and they brought it back a bit while we walked down to them.  Our timing was incredible, because they were carrying it down the trail until we got their attention.

Then we headed to Signal Road.   It is a maintained gravel road, that is about 14 miles to the mining area at Signal.  The road had  a few stretches of rough washboard, but was generally easy to maintain the 25mph limit.  About halfway out, the road wades through the Big Sandy River.

Big Sandy Crossing

When we got to the Signal area, we saw a sign that said Signal population 0, with an arrow pointing sideways.   It was at a bit of an angle to the road, so it wasn't clear whether it was pointing  along the road, or across it.

IE.  Our yard is not Signal

The  Arizona topo map on the hiking GPS said that Signal was a bit further up the road, so we headed that way, but there was no road across.  We guess that Signal was on the road that goes through the yard of the people who put up the sign.   We carried on about 5 miles to Alamo Crossing Road.    From this intersection, you can go 38 miles north to  Yucca on I-40 east of Needles, or 18 miles south to the north side of Alamo Lake.        We returned to the Signal sign, and drove across the road on a 'off-road' track.  We found a spot to park to look around.  We saw some mine remains on a hill to the east toward Big Sandy.  We walked around the mine, which is close to a point on the Arizona topo map called Virginia City, on an outcrop above the river.  

Mine footings

While we were eating lunch on the concrete at the mine site, we saw a pickup drive down toward the river.  When we finished lunch, we walked down to the river.   You can tell the Big Sandy location from the strip of bright green trees.  We could hear some burros in the valley, but couldn't see them.  It made sense when we got close to the river, because the trees are pretty dense, with just a narrow trail through them.

 Heavy brush

Then we got into an open area where a wash comes down to the river, and saw the truck that had gone by.  There were a couple from Yucca with a young doberman.  We chatted with them for a while.  The man had recently come to the USA from Italy.   We continued over to the river.

 Big Sandy River

On the way back, a few miles from the highway, we looked for a place to get off the road so we could do some hiking through an area with different rock structures, including a quartz  hillside. 

On Wednesday morning, we drove back to the rock structures, found a side 'road' we could pull off to park.  We followed this road for a while until we got into the rounded rock area,

Rounded boulders

and could see the large quartz deposit.  We headed off the road to it, and got some pictures.

 Outcrop from a distance

When we returned to the road, a little further down hill, we carried on for a while until we got to a the edge of a spine about a mile from the truck.  We climbed up the spine for a bit to look across the next valley.   Up the spine, there was another quartz vein.

Quartz Ridge

Thursday morning we packed up to head to Riverside Casino RV Park in Laughlin, Nevada.  There are good weekly rates at this park, which was recommended to us by Rupert and Helen.   It was overcast when we got the trailer packed up in Wikieup, and started drizzling a bit when we were just about done.  We drove north to Kingman through some rain.  We picked up some cash and groceries in Kingman.  We arrived in Laughlin about 12:20, so since check-in wasn't until 1:00, we parked in a little park with trailer parking to have lunch.  Fortunately the rain had blown over by the time we were setting up in Riverside.

Week ending Mar 8, 2018 Saddle Mountain BLM

Friday we moved all the way (about 8 miles) to the north side of Saddle Mountain to boondock, and get a decent test of two solar panels working.   They worked quite well, even running the furnace, which draws 11 amps,  for half an hour one morning.

Toward the mountain from our trailer

Our hikes for three days on Saddle Mountain.   Saturday in yellow, Sunday in red and Monday in dark green.

Our trails on Saddle Mountain

Saturday, we did a hike around a knoll to the southwest.  On the south side of the knoll, we came to an ATV trail heading west.  We followed this west for a bit to an intersection with another trail.  That trail came from the north and then headed south east between two rows of peaks toward the center of the mountain.  We decided to leave the route into the mountain for another. We followed the trail north toward Courthouse road, because we wanted to check out an image on the side of a hill to the west. 

not sure what this said

After getting  a picture, we carried on until we came across 4 people who had parked an SUV further down, and were searching the ground.  We chatted with a fellow and his wife. They were from Kansas, visiting friends in the area, and were looking for 'desert rose' rocks, which are bits of quartz with a pink tint.

a bit of desert rose

While chatting with them, we noticed the 'angel' on the mountain.

angel-shaped view

From there we went down the road a bit until we got to a point where it split.  We headed up the other arm until we got close to our trailer and then across a shallow wash to our trailer.

blue and green lichen

Sunday, we decided to walk up the trail into the mountain we had seen the day before.  We walked south toward the cross road we had been on yesterday, then to the intersection we found yesterday.  This time we took the trail southeast into the mountain.  This was up a 'box canyon' with nice peaks on both sides, following up a wash.   Once we got about halfway up this wash, we noticed a truck towards the end of the canyon.  Shortly after that, we heard target shooting ahead, so decided that it was time to return.  On our way out, we met 3 fellows coming up the canyon.  We mentioned the target shooters.  They thanked us for the warning.  They were heading for one of the peaks along the south ridge, so could skirt around the shooters.   When we asked them if they knew where the petroglyph rock on the mountain was located, they didn't know, but told us there were some in the Eagletail Wilderness to the west.

Monday, we decided to take a trail on the mountain that we had seen when we came out from the trailer park in Tonopah.  We tried to drive south up the road we are parked next to, then east across the foot of the mountain.  However. we came to a wash crossing that we didn't want to cross in the truck.  We (John) decided that we should go back to the paved road, then east to the Palo Verde Mine Road (which we had walked a week ago).  We drove up the Palo Verde road until it got a bit too rough and narrow, and find a spot we could back off the road.  From there we crossed country heading west until we got to the road that heads up the side of the mountain.  We walked up this to a saddle, where we got some good views.   While we were there  fellow from Oregon road up on an ATV and took a few pictures of the views. We chatted for a while.  After he headed back down the road, we had lunch.  While we were there we saw what looked like it might be a cabin near the bottom of the slope across from us.

'Cabin' from across the valley

We decided that we could walk down to it, then go down the valley and around the east end of the hill back to the truck.  We worked our way down to the object of interest.  Unfortunately it turned out to be a simple chunk of rock only about 3 feet high, that had the sun on it so that it looked like it might be a small cabin.

'Cabin' rock up close

From there, we walked along the slope above the wash until we got near the end of the ridge north of us, and worked our way around it to our truck.  

Tuesday, after doing some research on the location of the petroglyphs in Eagletail Wilderness, and marking the turn-off to the trailhead, the trailhead, and the petroglyph location on our E-trex, as well as writing down directions for following the trail, we headed west along Courthouse Rd, straight toward Courthouse Mountain.  At the edge of the wilderness, we headed 4 miles northwest along the El Paso Natural Gas Pipeline road, which had a lot of washboard and wash crossings that slowed us down.  We found the signage for the Wilderness, and headed the 1.5 miles south to the Ben Avery North Trailhead.  We stopped at a rocky area going over the edge of a little hill to make sure it was passable.  Fortunately it was okay, so we carried on to the trailhead.  John had actually seen the shadow of the sign-board at the trailhead on Wikimapia, so we were pretty confident of this location.   He had discovered Wikimapia when searching for information on the location of the petroglyphs.   The trail heading south along the west side of Courthouse Rock was pretty easy to follow.  For the first mile, it paralleled a wash.  At that point we went into the wash for a while until we came to cairns on the left side.  This section of the trail was very well-trodden, with cairns at critical points, making it easy to follow.  After wandering up and down the hilly section, we eventually hit a jeep road.  This took us south until we came to the black cliffs on which the natives had etched the petroglyphs.  There is quite a number of images.  

After having our lunch we headed back.   The trip was about 3.5 mi each direction, and took us from 10:45 until about 2:30.    We were quite happy when we got back.  

Ocotillo growing in a bed of quartz rocks

Courthouse Rock from south

On the way back on Courthouse Road, we saw a black fox scoot across the road ahead of us.  Fortunately it stopped just across the road.  When we backed up to get a picture, it had moved further into the brush, but was still visible.  It was hard to focus on with the brush between us.

 

Wednesday we took a day off to rest Joan's knee.  It had gotten a lot of stress this week.


Thursday we packed up as soon as it got light, and drove to the Subway at the Shell station in Tonopah for breakfast.  Then we headed up Vulture Mine Road to Wickenburg where we picked up groceries for the week.   From there we headed over the hills north through the Joshua Trees on highway 93 to Dazzo's Desert Oasis and Chicago Eatery, "the finest RV park in Wikieup, the world's best Chicago hot dogs and Italian beefs, the best in the west".