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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Modern petroglyph |
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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.
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| Level site |
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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
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| 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.
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| Foundations |
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| 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.
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| Cactus Garden |
About 10 vultures circling on the updrafts from the valley.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| V shaped tailings pile below Wrigley |
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| water tank, looking back toward Wrigley |
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| Tunnel hidden in bushes |
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| Tunnel |
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| 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.
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