More 4 wheeling beyond Hope

We met at the Arco station at the east end of town. This time there were seven Jeeps in the group.

Dennis’s son Brandon joined us with his brand new four door Jeep Rubicon.

Once we all showed up and finished BS-ing. We headed east on
I-10 to the exit for Highway 60 and headed east toward the town of Hope, AZ.

Just beyond the town, we turned south

at

We stopped to open a gate and passed through where we stopped again to air down the tires on the rigs.

Just passed where we aired down we turned east on a small trail.

We drove along this trail to a couple dead ends.

Eventually we got onto the correct trail and spent the day wandering through the mountains.

  

We drove up some steep hills

and through some very narrow washes.

This spot was particularly narrow.

Rocks to the left of us.

Rocks to the right of us.

Along the way we enjoyed the scenery.

We passed a Saguaro with a large nest in it.

 

The wildflowers and the cactus that are blooming. 

Beaver Tail Cactus.

Hedgehog Cactus.

We stopped at an overlook to check out the view of where we started.

You can see the town of Hope. It is the small cluster of white specks between the three small hills in the middle of the picture.

From here we continued to travel through the hills enjoying the flowers

and the scenery.

  

We passed a Teddy Bear Cholla cactus with a bird nest in it.

 
I imagine that this is a pretty safe place to raise chicks.

The last time we were in this area we crossed the top of this hill on the trail. We looked down the hill and decided that it was too steep to go down. This time we came to the bottom of the hill and decided to go up it.

It wasn’t as bad as it looked from above. It had one tricky spot at the top where there was some loose gravel but most of us made it with little trouble.

It was another fun ride!