05-06-13

The storm we were expecting yesterday never materialized so we decided to take a ride.

I was looking on our map and noticed an area called Hell Canyon. It looked like there were some roads that went along the side of that area and a couple of jeep trails that looked like they ended at the canyon rim.

We headed south from Williams, AZ, on Perkinsville Road. We drove for about seven miles to road #108 (Colman Lake Road) where we turned west and drove by Colman Lake.

I am not sure that it actually qualifies as a lake. It is just a huge meadow with a couple of small ponds in the middle but that’s what they call it.
We saw a couple of Canadians (Geese that is) feeding in the meadow.

 

We continued down Road 108 for a while. It is an nice well maintained dirt road also known as The Bill Williams Loop Road. 

We passed MC Tank. I think there might be more water in the tank than there is in Colman Lake.

We noticed on the map that there was a road #41 that made a loop to the south with a couple of spurs that looked like they went to the edge of Hell Canyon. When we came to #41 we turned onto it. Someone had apparently taken this road in a large truck while it was sloppy wet and carved big ruts for miles all the way around the loop.

There were also some places on the road that were very rocky so we had to take it easy.

A short ways down #41 we saw some deer. Patti was able to get a couple of pictures but there was a lot of brush in the way.

 

 

In several places there were trees down across the road. They appear to have been down for a while as the go a round’s were very clear.

 

 

We continued along the road until we came to spur trail #41A that looked like it was one of the ones that went to the canyon rim. We turned onto it and followed it for a couple mile or so until we came to another intersection.

We continued to follow 41A.
It was a pretty rough trail by this time and we were pretty far off the beaten path when the trail headed down a very steep incline.

Here I decided that since we were alone, that was as far as we were going on this trail.
We turned around and decided that it was time for lunch.
It was kind of cold out so once again we had lunch in the jeep.

After lunch we retraced our trail and got back on road #41. We continued around the loop back to 108 where we turned west.

We followed 108 for a while. We passed Dutch Kid Tank.

Eventually we came to road #4.
The map showed that road #4 went along the west side of Hell Canyon so we turned onto it and followed it for a couple of miles. It got pretty rocky after a while

but we pressed on. After a while we took a look at the map again and decided that we had passed the place where the trail comes close to the canyon wall. We turned around and went back over the rocky spots

until we came to a lesser trail that went east toward the canyon.
We followed it until it ended in a cul-de-sac. We stopped there and I took the camera and walked to the edge of the canyon to get a couple of pictures.

This canyon is not as spectacular as Sycamore canyon but it was interesting none the less.
I got a couple of pictures of a neat looking cactus that was growing along the canyon rim.

On the way out road #4, I noticed what looked like a grave under a large Juniper tree so on the way back we stopped to check it out. It turned out to be a grave for someone’s dog.

We got back to road #108 and back tracked about a mile to road #122 (Twin Springs Road). We knew that it went back to Perkinsville Road. On the map it looked like a well maintained road like #108. We turned onto it and headed west. The first 5 miles or so of the road was pretty rough.

If it hadn’t been for the forest we were in I would have thought we were on one of the trails in Quartzsite. The road smoothed out for the last couple of miles and we got back to the Perkinsville Road and headed back to Williams.

On the trip Patti took some wildflower pictures.

Wild Iris’s

I think these are called Indian War Bonnets.

 

I found it interesting to see Yucca’s sprouting amongst the pine trees.

Patti also got an interesting picture of the bark on this old Juniper.

Before we left on this ride we put together a recipe that Patti found on Face Book for crock pot orange flavored chicken.
We were looking forward to trying it when we got back.
Before we made up the rice for the meal we tasted the stuff in the crock pot. It was not good.
We ended up going to the Pine Country restaurant and had a wonderful prime rib dinner.

It was a fun day and we saw a lot of the country south of Williams.
Patti took some more pictures of the main street
(route 66).

 

This is an old gas station that was converted into a restaurant.

We are thinking of going to Flagstaff today to check out the lay of the land.