Note;
The photos with a date stamp were taken by Andre.
I am going on another jeep ride tomorrow and won’t have time to do a blog in the morning so here is what we did today.
This morning we met at the Fire station at 9:00. There was Cheryl, Dennis, Becky and Dennis and me and Andre. We were going to meet Freda and Gene and Rick and Nancy at the Rotten Robbie’s gas station in Parker.
Our destination was the back way to Finger Rock.
I took this picture from the gas station. Finger rock is visible from a long ways off.
Once we got going again we crossed the Colorado River on the bridge north of town. Once on the California side we turned east and followed the road for a few miles until we came to a BLM sign saying Crossroads back country byway. Just past the sign we turned to the left and drove a little ways to a large flat area where we stopped to air down.
You can see Finger Rock in the back ground.
After airing down we headed out. Our first challenge was this steep hill.
The hill wasn’t a problem. Once on top we followed this narrow trail along a ridge.
The ridge trail eventually connected with another trail and we continued toward Finger Rock.
The road got a little bumpy from here on.
We traveled along enjoying the beauty of the desert.
On top of the pass we stopped to enjoy the view of Parker
and checked out a grave on the summit.
We continued down the trail and eventually dropped into a wash and turned left.
We came to our first rock challenge a short way up the wash.
It was a bit narrow
but not to difficult.
We came across some ATV’s trying to come down this steep trail.
Last year we came down the same trail in our jeeps. These guys in the ATV’s were a little tentative and were having some trouble getting down.
We saw them later in the day. They had turned around and gone another way.
We continued in the wash to our next challenge, a rocky section.
It wasn’t as hard as it looks.
The next challenge was a bit more difficult. My rock sliders paid for them selves on this one. I scrapped a lot of paint off them.
Just past this spot we found a tarantula walking in the wash.
Freda got it to attach itself to a stick so it could be moved out of the trail.
There were some other bumpy spots in the wash.
I kind of got hung up on a big rock and had to be pulled off.
Here is another spot that looks harder than it was.
We passed close to the finger.
We eventually got out of the wash and onto a rocky trail.
We came to this old tin building that housed Thousands of ore samples.
Most of the samples just looked like dirt in bags but there were a few core samples.
We continued along the trail until we came to another mining area with several tin buildings with tens of thousands of samples.
There was other abandoned mining equipment.
Here is an old boiler.
And an old water tank on the hill above the buildings.
We passed a head stock and vertical shaft.
Continuing on we eventually dropped in another wash. After driving along the wash for a while we stopped to get some pictures of “Horse Head” rock.
When I first saw the rock I thought it looked like a giant tortoise climbing over the rock toward us.
But after looking closer I could see the horses head.
From there it was just a matter of following the wash until we came to the air down spot where we aired up and headed for home.
The ride was a little tough but a lot of fun.
Tomorrow we are going to the Eye of the Needle and and some new trails. Bob will be my co-pilot on this trip.
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