Signing Papers and a ride on Black Cat Pass Road.

Tuesday.

Signing Papers.

Tuesday around 12:00 we met with Dick at the title company in Parker. We signed the final papers and gave them a check for the Property. They have to wait 10 days to allow the check to clear. Therefore escrow will close on the 10th of December. We will start moving in after that.

After the title company, we went to the Motor Vehicle Department and registered the 5th wheel.

Now we just have to wait till December tenth.

Wednesday

Black Cat Pass.

We met the rest of the group at the Arco station on the east side of town by 9:00. There were 5 jeeps in the group.
Dennis M, Dennis K, Tom, Gene, and us.

Once we were gathered, we headed east on I-10.

At the Highway 60 exit we exited…

and continued east on 60.

There was a little slow down, as the ADOT was putting plastic shields over the reflective dots on the center line. It took me a while to figure out why they were doing that, then it occurred to me that maybe they were going to spray sealant on the highway and they didn’t want the reflective dots to be covered with road oil.
Or maybe they were going to paint the center line and were protecting the dots from the paint.

We continued down Highway 60 past the town of Hope, AZ…

and pulled off the highway at the Black Cat Pass Rd and stopped to air down the tires.

Once we were done we got on the trail.
The trail follows the railroad tracks for a while.

We came to a trail to the right so we turned onto it and went under the tracks.

This trail takes us through an old mining area.

We wandered around here for s few minutes and then looked for a trail that continued up the mountain. After a bit we found a rough trail going up the wash.
I went ahead to check it out and found that we could follow the trail up to the next mine. I called the others on the walkie-talkie and told them the trail is kind of rough but to come on up, so up they came.

There was a covered over shaft here …

Behind this shaft is a tunnel going into the mountain.

The tunnel is nice and big with at least two branches. The problem was that the tunnel smelled so strongly of Bat guano and urine that we didn’t go in. You could smell it from several feet away. Yuck!!

Black Cat Pass.

We left this mine and drove back the way we had come. We found another trail going into the mountains and followed it.

We came to a pass through the mountains and decided that this must be Black Cat Pass.

The trail went over the pass and into the Salome Valley. We didn’t want to go there so we turned around and headed back the way we came.

We went back under the tracks.

We came to the dusty main trail and followed it north.

Another Side Trail.

We found another trail going east so we turned onto it.

We crossed under the railroad again.

The trail went across some desert flats toward the mountains.

Eventually we started climbing the mountains.

We stopped for lunch at a small flat spot near the top of this rough climb.

After lunch we continued up the trail.

The Desert Queen Mine.

After several miles of rough trail…

we eventually made it to the Desert Queen Mine.
This used to be a large house but people have been scavenging building materials from it.

A little farther up the trail we came to the mine.

There are a couple of vertical shafts here that have been covered over with wood and a large tunnel.

Just to the right of the tunnel is this interesting Saguaro cactus.

There is also a loading shoot that is still standing.

After a while we left here and headed west.

We continued west until we came to The Vicksburg Pit Road where we turned south.
We drove past the gravel pit…

When we got to the pavement we aired up the tires and headed for Quartzsite.

It was a fun ride and it was nice to be playing in the desert again.