03-11-10

The weather has been kind of crappy the first few days of this week with rain, cold and high winds.
Yesterday was a little better, the breeze was cold but for the better part of the day the sky was mostly clear. By late afternoon the clouds began to gather and it looked like more rain was in the offing. Phoenix got some showers and Flagstaff got some more snow.
We took a ride yesterday. The longest one yet. We covered 124 miles. Of course about half of it was on pavement. We drove up to Parker AZ, topped of the gas tank and took Shea road toward the mountains east of Parker. After about 20 miles we finally left the black top behind and entered a wash through a canyon going north east.

As we followed along enjoying the views we stopped to investigate some interesting very narrow side canyons that could only be entered on foot.

The notches went back a short distance and then opened up.

The second one was a little longer and had a vertical shaft near one wall.

A little further back the canyon opened up and split into several smaller canyons. The floors of these canyons were kind of steep so I didn't follow them.

We moved along down the wash and eventually came to the end at the Bill Williams River. There was a cable across the road so we had to walk a few yards to get to the river.

We left the river and headed back along the wash. I turned up a side canyon a little way and found a spot for lunch.
While we were there Patti got some nice macro pictures of very tiny wild flowers.

After lunch we continued our trip back along the wash. We saw some tracks going east and followed them into what I found out later is called "Slot Canyon".
After a short distance we came to a "Y" in the trail and took the right fork. We were able to drive only a short way when the gap became too narrow for Clifford so we parked and walked into the canyon.

we walked under a large overhang.

This canyon was not very long and came out at a road. We retraced our steps and getting in the jeep we went back to the "Y" where we turned east into the Slot canyon.

The slot opened into a wide wash and eventually came to a road.
We followed the road to an intersection with a sign that read Planet Ranch rd.
We turned onto that road and drove about 4 miles to a locked gate. When we got to the gate I realized that we had been here before.

Several years ago Patti and I were traveling around Arizona in my van "Pigpen". We had tried several roads trying to get to the Bill Williams River. This was one of them. I recognized the gate with its many locks.

and a ruin at the top of a hill.

We turned around again and went back to the intersection where we turned south. Eventually we came to a 4 way intersection. One road went back to Parker, one road went to Swansea town site, one went straight ahead to Bouse. we decided to go to Bouse. The road came to the same intersection where a while back, we unloaded the the ATV's and took the trip to the Bill Williams River and Swansea.(See blog dated March, 2, 2010)

We got home around 4:30.

Here is the map;