01-29-12

I have been wondering about this road that I saw on a map some where. It went around the mountains east of the Eagles Eye

and connected with Vicksburg Road at the north east boundary of the Kofa refuge. I looked on all the maps that I had, even the topo one that came with my GPS but could not find it. Finally I decided that the only way I would know for sure where it went was to follow it.

We were playing cards at Becky and Dennis’s last evening and Becky asked Patti if she wanted to go to the venders today to do some shopping. Patty said she would so that left me with nothing to do. I asked Dennis if he would like to take a ride to check out this unknown road. He said he would like that as he had nothing else to do.

This morning at around 10:00 we headed east on I-10 to Highway 60, continued east to Ramsey Mine Rd, and headed south. When we got to the kiosk at the parking area on the south side of the freeway we took a left and followed the trail along I-10. The trail veered south away from I-10 toward the mountains.

We came to a cross road where there was another kiosk with a map that showed the trails in the area. Now I understood where I had seen the map with the mystery road. It was at the kiosk on Ramsey Mine Road. from there we took one of the trails that went toward the mountains.

One trail went up a steep hill and stopped at a spot that overlooked a beautiful valley.

We got out of the jeep to take a look at the scenery. I had taken a few steps when remembered that the camera was still in the jeep. Dennis, in a horse whisper said, “get mine too.” By his whisper, I figured that he had seen some sort of  wildlife. When I got back to him he said that there was a Big Horn Sheep just a little way off the trail.

Dennis got some good pictures of the sheep.

Most of mine were blurred but I did get one of the sheep running off.

We wandered into the valley a little to see if we could see any more sheep but that one was apparently alone.

We left there and followed another trail to its end in another valley.

We turned back to the main trail where we continued southeast along the mountains. As we went along we took some other trails into the mountains. They all ended in cul-de-sacs. One of the trails went into a pretty valley that had some interesting rock formations.

including this really cool Hoodoo.

We took a short walk up the valley but it became too steep so we returned to the jeep and continued our exploration. Eventually we came to a fence that marked the northern boundary of the Refuge. We followed the fence eastward. It was a very bumpy track that appeared to be a maintenance road for the fence. Eventually we arrived at the intersection with Vicksburg Road where we headed back to I-10 and home.

Now I know where the mystery road ends for sure.