Here we are Saturday morning a couple hours into our trip north of Phoenix. It's early April and the temps about 85 deg Fh, a perfect weekend for off-roading. We are attempting a new route to Crown King, a small town in the mountains. Scot (the guy waving) made the route on his atc a few weeks prior and wanted to retrace the trail and check out some new terrain. I'm the skinny guy in the hat.
The trail had several erosion ruts like this one, but nothing serious. I thought this picture would look better because of the steep hill we were on, but the incline doesn't show up well in the photo.
After a day of exploring we ended up on top of this hill with no idea how to get to Crown King. Scot had forgotten the way! This hill ended at a 150-ft cliff with no way down. From up here we could see the trail we needed to be on, but had no way to reach it! At the base of the cliff was a trail that ended at a mine so we figured there had to be a way down and that all was not lost. We hiked around looking for something that resembled a trail, but nothing. We did find a ravine that we could hike down to the trail below and thought we might have a better chance of finding the trail coming up, and if not, well at least it was something to do. So down we went. It was fairly easy going, climbing over rocks and around bushes. Made it to the bottom and guess what, no trail. The mine didn't look to safe either so we stayed out. Now we had to climb back up, and believe me the ravine looks a lot steeper from the bottom, but what are ya gonna do? It was a long tough climb, really didn't think one of the guys was going to make it. He was having real trouble about 3/4 the way up. It wasn't treacherous, just really steep and rocky, so with a few rest points we all made it to the top in one piece. We staggered back to the cars and enjoyed some well-needed liquid refreshment.
We decided this was a good spot to set up camp. It was flat and apparently no one had been here in years because firewood was everywhere. I'm talking entire dead trees.
In our wanderings we found some core samples (drillings from the rock) and determined this to be a geological exploration site. Probably looking for gold or silver, which they didn't find, explaining the dead end trail.
With camp set up, we built a fire, cooked dinner and washed it down with a few more of those liquid refreshments before turning in for the night.
Upon waking in the morning we noticed things had changed. It was bitter cold and cloudy. No problem, we know this can happen this time of year so we were prepared. We cooked sausage and eggs for breakfast on the coals that were left in the fire pit. While eating we watched the clouds literally roll over the mountain and down towards us getting colder the entire time. Rested and fed, we packed up camp, doused the fire, and decided to head back down the hill before it got to bad.
Found a neat rock formation on the way out. Thought it was a good photo op. Don't know why we didn't use the camera with the timer so we could all get in the picture.
As expected, it started to snow. Scot had a problem with his wipers or something so we were sitting here for about ten minutes while he straightened them out. Remember we're in Arizona, so one of the first things to go on a baja are the heater pipes...BBRRRR!!!
O.K. we're moving again. As you can see it's snowing pretty hard now. I found out later that Scot really didn't have a problem. He was actually getting out his Coleman single burner to keep warm with while we sat and froze. Ha Ha Ha.
The snow is slowing now and even starting to melt at this lower elevation. The snow covered trees made for a nice shot.
The storm was brief, but left everything in a blanket of white for a few hours, anyway. We never did make it to Crown King this weekend, but is was one of my favorite trips due to the new terrain and unexpected happenings caused by our wanderings.