I took the day off yesterday. I spent a couple hours working on the blog in the morning. The rest of the day I mostly just sat around reading a book.
In the evening we went to Becky and Dennis’s to play cards.
Around 5:30 this morning I heard a few rain drops on the roof of the RV. The weather forecasters are calling for a significant Rain event for the next couple of Days.
We can only hope it comes to pass.
Patti is feeling better so maybe she can start going on jeep rides with me.
We met at the fire station north of town. It was the usual suspects plus a guy named John and his wife with a stock Jeep TJ.
Patti still isn’t feeling all that great so my friend Bob of the “Bobs Eyes” blog went with me. Bob took a lot of the pictures for this post.
Some of the pictures were taken by Becky of Becky and Dennis.
When everyone arrived, we headed north on Highway 95 through Parker and continued toward Lake Havasu City. We crossed the bridge over the Bill Williams River. About a mile past the bridge there is a large area on the right where a lot of RV’ers boon dock.
We turned to the right, entering the large flat area.
We stopped here to air down.
The group split up here between those who wanted to take the hard route and those who would rather take the easy route.
We went with the hard way group.
On the north end of the large flat the trail drops into a wash.
We turned right in the wash and traveled up stream. Not far up the wash we came to the hard part.
Dick had a little trouble getting his Cherokee up the rocks but eventually made it.
Clifford had no problem.
After negotiating the “hard spot” we met up with the easy routers and headed up the trail toward the Needle.
There were a couple of bumpy spots on the trail
But most of it was pretty smooth. It gets a little steep near the top.
The Needle is one of the more interesting rock formations in the area. I was told that it is a lava core that had a lot of gas bubbles. Through the eons the weather has eroded the rock exposing the gas pockets.
The eye of the needle is a small gap near the base of the rock.
You can climb through the eye
to look at the other side.
We left the needle and headed back to the highway.
At the highway, we turned south toward Parker. When we got close to The Parker Dam we turned right and drove to a picnic spot
right on the shore of Lake Havasu.
After lunch we continued our ride toward Parker.
We turned off at the road to the Desert Bar. A short distance up the road we took a trail to the right and wandered around the desert.
We stopped to check out a mine that had been closed off.
After leaving there we continued to wander around the desert taking several dead end trails. We came to another mine area with an old abandoned dump truck.
As boys will, we played around the truck for a while.
We decided to drop down into a wash near where the truck was parked.
We turned right in the wash and followed it through a narrow slot in the rocks.
On the other side of the slot we came to some rocks to crawl over.
It looked harder than it was.
We stopped top check out another mine shaft.
After a few hours of driving around the desert we decided that it was time to head for home. We got on the Desert Bar road and headed for the highway.
Bob and I pulled over just before entering the highway to air the tires up. Becky and Dennis pulled up along side us and we noticed that their right front tire was going flat. We hollered at them about the tire. They pulled over on a flat spot to change the tire.
Tom and Lilly showed up. They must have been on the highway and saw us on the side road.
After the tire was changed we headed for home.
It was a fun ride.
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.
