Thursday, January 17, 2013

01-17-13

We met at the fire station on the North end of Quartzsite.
There were seven jeeps in the group.
Around 10:00 we headed North toward Parker, AZ.
One of the jeeps had a problem on the way to Parker and had to turn back. 
The rest of us continued North and then turned East on Shea Road. We followed Shea Rd for around 15 miles.

Dennis M (white jeep) was the leader today and had researched a trail that supposedly went from Shea Rd. North, through the mountains and comes out on SR 95 East of Parker.
We stopped on the pavement to air down and turned onto this wash to start our search for the trail.

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We followed several washes going North

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but they all ran up against the wilderness boundary so we had to turn around.
We stopped for lunch in one such wash.

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After lunch we followed some rock strewn washes going East.

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We even tried following a power line road

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but came to route closed sign and had to turn around.

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Eventually we happened onto a trail that looked like it was going in the right direction so we followed it for several miles going up and down some steep rocky hills.

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The trail came back to the power lines and we followed it to a place with a great view.

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Dennis located our position on his map and we found out that the spot is called the “Jump Off”. 
After taking in the view and photographing its beauty we followed a trail to the North East and got to the crest of another ridge.

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The trail was pretty rough.

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From the ridge top we saw several trails going in many directions. We still weren’t sure which trail was the one we were looking for. After a little discussion we decided to try the next ridge top and see if we could see a trail that would take us across the mountains to SR 95.
When we got to the ridge we saw more trails going in different directions.
It was getting late and some of the jeeps were getting low on fuel so we decided to head back to the pavement and maybe try finding this route another day. Now we know where to get onto the trail so we won’t waste time and fuel trying to find it.

It was a great ride and we had a lot of fun.

On a sadder note, Patti’s sister Dianne passed away Tuesday night just before 10:00.

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