9-30-07 Martinez Mine and the Coke Ovens

After heading out to Harquhala trail and the Toyota proving grounds on Saturday I fealt like laying around Sunday. I was supposed to get up and 5 and load up and drive for an hour to the meeting spot.
I woke up and promptly went back to sleep. Against my better judgement I found myself awake and getting dressed. I was on auto pilot at this point.
Next thing I new I was loaded up and ready to go, but still mostly asleep.
I might as well go!
I headed out towards a little town called Florence where the trail starts.
Once I saw this on the way I was glad I had gone.

In the meeting area I saw some old faces as well as some new ones. I'm always impressed by the quality of people I meet riding my dirt bike. Great minds think alike I guess....
:)

After riding along grated road to get back to the trail we came upon the obsticle that was the most difficult for my stock 4runner when I took it out here a couple years ago.


This took us down Box Canyon. We decided to show the guys who had not been the end of the canyon.


We then turned around and headed back to the turn off for the Martinez mine and cabins.



There are a couple of nasty rock sections that just want to through you off your bike with one mis-calculation!
I didn't get any pics of this rock section, but a couple of us went down.
Here I am just getting going to take my shot at the rock section just out of picture.
Thanks to Woody for the picture.

Once through that we came into what used to be a small town for the martinez mine.


Then off for the most difficult part taking us to the mines themselves!

I waited at the bottom of this rock section and watched the other guys tackle it.

Everyone made it up! It was my turn. Likely because of my lack of finesse I know that if my bike stops as some of the other guys did I go bang and fall over. So, I decided to try and do it without stopping or loosing my momentum.
Credit to Woody for all of these 4 pics.
Here we go

I made it through the mine field!

Just a bit more to the top

SOOO happy I made it!

We made it to the mine!




We headed back out without incident!

At the turn back to our trucks about half the group wanted to go to the Coke Ovens. So, we went!
I took a bit of wrestling with my bike, but we made it!

I was now out of water and energy! I needed to head back BAD!
We had a great ride back to the trucks and by the end I could barely hold onto the bars. My hands were permanently locked in a handlebar grip the rest of the day!
Man I love being on 2 wheels!

Thanks again to Woody for putting this above pic together!
You can see some of his pics at http://www.putfile.com/sro1

Harquhala trip

It was a busy weekend. On Saturday Danica and I headed out to Harquhala. Its the highest "desert" point in AZ.

The lower portion of the trail was graded and easy as ever!

Saw a little guy as we went down the road!

Some more friends!

Just as the trail become decently difficult we saw this!


Apparently it was too difficult for some...

Made it!

Its not a full day journey, but it was longer than expected.
Lots of equiptment at the top!


The observatory at the top!



On the way down we took a short side road and saw an old building and some cement ponds! ...?




On the way home we could either go through wickenburg or through the desert. We of course chose to go through the desert!
We saw some old mine ruins.






After trekking through the desert on random roads past some creepy looking homes we started seeing a double barb wire topped fence. It looked very recent. It went on for MILES. We just had to keep following it.
At the end we found the entrance to the facility which I had long known was out there, but had never actually seen. Its the toyota proving grounds!!




This is a huge facility that can be seen on google maps. Maybe I should get a job there!

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