soaztim: AZ ROCKS 2008

I have had a heck of a time getting the gears fixed on my 4runner. I'll do a post on that whole fiasco! Yikes.
I was finally done so I wanted to go and try out two things that had been sitting in my garage gathering dust for way too long!
The roof top tent and some new HID lights.
I mounted them both up and tested them out at home.

Danica and I headed out to Florence, AZ to go and find the TTORA club and their AZ rocks headquarters.
When we got out there it was late and hard to tell who was who so we decided to find our own little campsite and set up.
Doing the roof top tent in the dark for the first time was not the best way to do it, but it was still amazingly easy. No problems. Everything was intuitive.
The next morning we checked in and decided to cruise around with a couple buddies exploring the area alone instead of with one of the planned runs.
This area has a lot of history and much of it still stands. Too much of it has been destroyed by idiots that weren't hugged enough as children and feel the need to beat up 100+ year old buildings...

Whats that. Some MOO cows.

Danica talked to them and then did some Ninja stealth moves and got close.

Open front diffs like to spin a tire or two if the traction is lacking. Here Duncan paints the side of his truck with some swampy mud. MMMM!

Its getting hot in AZ and the wild flowers are at their end unless it rains. There are still some amazing ones to be seen though!

Okay, back to manly things!
The trail ahead. This part of the trail is the road to Box Canyon, Coke Ovens, Martinez Mine and more.

Traffic Jam! BUT a good chance to meet some folks and hang out with Rex which I only knew online so far!

We had bumped into the "beginner run" which I thought was funny because many of these guys had lots of experience. They just had kept their trucks a bit more mild so they could drive them to the trail and not trailer them. While heading down this little hill the "expert run" came up so we let them pass.

Its kinda funny because with 39 or 40 inch diamter tires you can just roll over most things.
Driving skill is not much of an issue. Not that these guys didn't have it.

He didn't want to wait so he did some mid obsticle passing.

After watching them go it was our turn so we headed back to the trucks.

Rex Cruised on down.

Then Duncan and I. I'll post a video right HERE later of that.

At the turn to the Coke Ovens and Martinez Mine there is a really steep hill thats fun to play on. As I went down a nice sized hole swallowed up the 4runner and put us on three wheels. Not in a good way!
When Duncan went I got a pic.

It doesn't look to bad from far away. Let me zoom in on that so you can see the full fun he was having.

YIKES! That could have been bad. :)
But he was fine.

We played around a bit more and then headed out to catch up with the group.

I wonder why there is fencing along a random stretch of the trail... Makes me wonder what is down in that wash!

In this area the ancient Budlighters spent a lot of time and this cave had evidence of their presence and not much else. I assume it was a test hole from the mining days.

As you get up into Martinez Canyon it is beautiful!

Look flowers!

I was amazed that a Jeep Compass had made it this far back!

At the cabins we ate lunch and hung out.

These are the old compressors for the mines clean air just up the canyon.

After lunch the main group headed out to do the Mine section of the trail. This section is twice as difficult as what we had done so far. I'd love to do it sometime, but we had a wedding to be at in a few hours in Tucson so we headed out and down Box Canyon.
On the way back we stopped of at a cave that I've heard used to be a whorehouse back in the mining days.
Its a little loop.
The entrance