We jumped off the highway!
Here is the old bridge into town.
Lots of interprative sites along the way. I did my best, but my interperation yielded little result. I just saw nature all over the place!
Big cow, little shade!
We saw rain ahead! woohoo!
We were now at pretty low elevation and headed along reddington road on the back side of Mt Lemon. For those who are not familiar. We were in the middle of BFE or nowhere.
As we headed into the storm the clear skies were behind us!
A saguaro forest.
It rained heavy all night long. There is no better sleep aid than rain falling on a tent.
We stayed near the town of Mammoth, AZ and waited to meet up with some friends from Tucson in the morning. Arizona has the most odd named towns. There is Vail, Bagdad, carefree, and even the town of Why.
My buddy Brent who I race Baja with was going to show us a rough old mining road from the town of Mammoth to the even smaller town of Klondike. Rough was not a strong enough road. This was the second hardest trail I've ever done in Arizona. I loved it!
Will had a couple of issues with an open diff and a manual tranny, but did great. It was his first real trail since building a long travel kit for his truck. 18 and he built his own long travel kit. Damn impressive. He sucks at doing brakes though! haha!
This trail just kept climbing and climbing. This was the "easy" part Brent said. He wasn't kidding.
The couple of buggies with us did amazing. Rear wheel drive and the engine over the rear wheels shows how impressive 2wd can be!
The next portion... well... I didn't get any pics. They call it carpet hill because folks take old carpets out there because its so steep that otherwise no one would make it up or down the hill safely...
Yikes. it was steep. Very very steep.
We came along some mine ruins. This must have been the pay office.
Hence the safe!
These look like boilers of some sort. Some enterprising farmer likely stole the tubes to make into a fence many decades ago.
You can see all of the brick for fires.
These century plants were everywhere. I've never seen so many and I've never seen one in bloom. This trail made up for it in spades!
Danica and Martha!
I was impressed at what a full size dodge power wagon can do! Its truly in the only full size truck I'd try to take off road.
We finally descended into Turkey creek where we would camp.
There are some indians ruins we checked out too.
This canyon has been farmed for hundreds of years by Natives and settlers.
After getting demolished by mosquito's all night we headed out.
What's left of the town of Klondike.
Gotta love Arizona. Where else can you drive a dune buggy legally on the I-10 freeway.
I spent the rest of the day putting in new brakes on the 4runner, pulling out the third member and fixing the rear locker, re-running the locker air line, and sleeping like a baby!
The next morning I promptly awoke at 10:30am, whoops. I decided to go and ride the Fantasy Island course. I love this moutain bike trail. It was always my favorite while in College.
The field goal. Don't miss or you'll get free accupuncture.
Elbow buster. The drop is fun, but the impact is not!
The slide!
The christmas tree loop!
Over and around!!!
We then headed back to Phoenix. To responsibility and bills. To pavement and walls.
SO, we decided to take the absolute slowest way back through Mammoth, AZ. I had to get a pic of the Gas Station Turned CHURCH for my brother.
That place was funny. I love it.
More mines on the way back.
