Way out West

The next morning we set off to find the walkway under the new, opened in 2007, highway 93 bridge, (it’s at the end of MacDonalds car park) as we headed into Wickenburg across the old road bridge and the usually dry Hassayampa River.

 

Our first stop was the Horseshoe Café for breakfast and very scrummy it was too, so much so that we were forced to return a couple of times.

The visitor centre is in the old station and the very helpful lady gave us lots of information, one of which was a walking tour of the town, a very good way to walk of our huge breakfast! 

Around the town statues depict scenes from Wickenburg life, they’re made of some sort of metal, are very lifelike and the detail is amazing.   The one by the station shows a new school teacher arriving in town in the early 1900’s.

Mrs Elizabeth Smith the original owner of the Hassayampa Hotel welcoming guests in the late 1800’s.

For lack of a jail outlaws were chained to this tree from 1863 – 1890, escapes were unknown and at first glance we thought it was actually a real person sitting under the tree and we weren’t the only ones to think that either!

There were quite a few other statues around town, later on I even carefully walked around this ‘spider’ before I realized it was another statue.

We spent a very enjoyable couple of hours in the Desert Caballeros Western Museum it’s an amazing museum with some fabulous exhibits, photography isn’t allowed.  

We stopped by the Garcia Little Red Schoolhouse that was built in 1905 and is on the historic register but unfortunately for us we could only look outside as it was closed.

Henry Wickenburg, the founder of both the Vulture Mine and the town of Wickenburg.

A few more photographs around Wickenburg

I love carousels and this caught my eye as we walked back, not quite sure how exactly it would fit in the fiver though!

Have fun, we are!

Williams to Wickenburg

It was cold but sunny when we left Williams,

 

but BT’s heated seats soon made us nice and toasty.   When we got to Ash Fork we’d dropped a couple of thousand feet and were warming up nicely 

tootling along I40

and by the time we dropped down to Kingman the heated seats were most definitely switched off and it was almost time to put the aircon on. 

Along highway 93

We took about 4 hours to drop down to Wickenburg and arrive at Desert Cypress RV Park by the Hassayampa River, where it was sunny and even more importantly warm! 

It’s a lovely small park, very clean with friendly people, the plan was to stay for a week but we were enjoying the area so much we stayed for two.

A pretty pool with a Jacuzzi section at one side has flowers and Joshua trees overlooking it, so after setting up while DB soaked up the sunshine I treated myself to a relaxing dip in the lovely warm water.   Ah bliss!

Have fun, we are!

And then came....................

There was no sign of the Grand Canyon re-opening so we decided that we’d move on, but the weather forecast wasn’t good, high winds were forecast as was snow but for higher ground around Flagstaff, luckily not for Williams.   We don’t like travelling in high winds so we decided to stay a couple more days and let the bad weather pass through.

 

But, the following day this is what we saw when we woke up.

 

Quite a few people headed out as the morning wore on, but we were so glad we’d didn't have to and could stay warm and toasty.

After a while we drove into town for breakfast at the Grand Canyon Café, which, as always, was scrumptious.

As the day wore on the snow turned to sleet, then rain, by late afternoon it was almost all gone and there was a glorious sunset.

The next day was gorgeously sunny, but cold, so after breakfast we decided we’d see how much, if any, any snow was left on old Route 66, naturally this included a stop at our favourite deli.

While the road was clear there was still snow in the forest and the views of the San Francisco peaks were simply breathtaking.

We decided we'd had enough snow and cold so we left the next day, of course this just happened to be the day the state of Arizona re-opened the Grand Canyon.   We did think about staying, but the thought of hot sunshine down in the desert won. 

Have fun, we are!

Don't climb the trees!

Another interesting place in Williams is Bearizona, this was our second trip and as before we really enjoyed our visit. 

One of the things we’ve always been told when out hiking is don’t run from bears or cougars as they’ll naturally assume you’re prey and good to eat, so stand your ground, make yourself as large and threatening as possible and they’ll back off.   Well that’s what we’ve always been told, thankfully we’ve never been in a position where we’ve had to put this to the test, and I hope we never are! 

The other thing we’ve always been told is don’t climb trees to avoid bears, again thankfully, we’ve never been had to test this either, but bears are pretty big animals could they really shin up a tree that fast? 

The answer is Yes! Yes! Yes!

On this trip to Bearizona when we visited one of the bear areas, I think they were juveniles; everyone was looking up at the trees.   At first we couldn’t see anything,

 

when we looked again, we could see a couple of bears were high up in the pine trees, snuffling around the branches enjoying themselves.   Branches I might add that to us in no way shape or form looked anywhere near strong enough to support a bear.

One bear peeped out to admire either the view or possibly wondering what all the tourists were looking at.

Both bears admiring the view

We watched them for ages, at one point it almost seemed as if they were playing to the crowd, then they decided to come down, I thought this would take them a few minutes.   Wrong!  They were down in seconds,  

starting to come down

On roll

Made it

So it really is true, don't try, because you definitely can’t out climb a bear!

On our drive through, we saw this Alaskan Tundra wolf, he was so cute but we managed to resist the temptation to give him a cuddle. 

The white buffalo enjoying a spot of lunch

 

Enjoying a snooze in the afternoon sunshine

 

We really enjoyed our second trip to Bearizona and no doubt we’ll visit again on one of our trips.

 

Have fun, we are!

The (Why are we here?!) Old Peavine Railroad

On yet another lovely morning, in our trusty Williams guide book we found a drive that looked interesting, along the Old Peavine Railroad.   Now we know our guide book is about 15 years old, and let’s face, it all guide books are out of date even before they’re published!   But the drive was marked as suitable for normal cars and with the exception of one hike where we just couldn’t see the trail as it entered the forest, all the other drives and hikes we’ve ever followed have been exactly as described.

 

The drive followed the old Peavine Railroad as it wound up the side of the mesa, along the top and then back down the other side where it eventually rejoined the paved road.

 

We found the road, followed it, part way along it turned to dirt, but according to our trusty guide book it was a good dirt road.   The road was okay, a little rougher than the guide book said but we were expecting that, although I wouldn’t want to drive it in a normal car.

 

After a while it became quite narrow as we were actually driving on the old railroad bed, the road was built up on each side and every so often we'd go through a cutting as it wound its way along slowly climbing the side of the mesa.  

Driving through a cutting

After about 9 miles, it got narrower and rougher we reached a cattle grid by Wolf Mountain Ranch (yes that is a wolf in the photograph, but a metal one)

leading into Prescott National Forest and onto Forest Road 573, now maybe this should’ve given us a clue as to cross the cattle grid we had to take down the barbed wire fence. 

Still the forest road, although looking rough didn't seem too bad I asked DB if he thought we should turn around.   We thought about it but decided that as we were about halfway through the drive we may as well carry on, so carry on we did.   What a mistake to make!

Once on FR 573 the road got much rougher, the first thing we had to negotiate was a hill, at the top of which we met a small Toyota truck coming the other way, luckily there was space to pass, the truck pulled in we said hello and the truck continued on its way down to the cattle grid.

 

As the truck had come from the way we were heading we thought, well it can't be that bad!   How wrong can you be!    It got worse, much worse, I suppose 15 years of monsoon rains, forest fires and snow had literally swept the road surface away and we were driving on bedrock.

The forest encroached and the road actually got narrower, I don’t know what would’ve happened if we’d met anyone else coming the other way.   It also got rougher, a lot rougher and despite 4WD and driving at less than walking pace, we were bouncing around like popcorn!   

 

It definitely wasn’t suitable for a car, never mind our truck, it really was a jeep or ATV road and we were literally climbing over boulders!   We reached another hill, stopped at the bottom, both looked at it and said, among other things, Oh! My! God!

Our Oh! My! God! moment

It doesn’t look too bad does it? But, this is what those boulders actually were like.

We probably could've made it but who knew what we were going to find when we got to the top?   Not only that, but if we had to turn round, could we?  Could we get down without ripping of the exhaust or the running boards?  Besides which what would we be driving into further along, would it be worse?   Who knew, certainly not us.    

 

I got out and walked up, the views were fabulous, green forest on each side of the road, red rocks, mountains in the distance, sunshine, blue skies absolutely gorgeous but!!!   Looking at the road, knowing we’d got at least another 9 miles of who knew what to negotiate I thought I really don't like this we're on our own out here, probably no cell service so no rescue if anything happens.   Come to that the road was so narrow how on earth anyone would rescue us was another matter, never mind how much it would cost and it was a very, very long walk back.   Not only that but while we drive on plenty of dirt roads, this road was way out of our comfort zone, time to turn around while we still could!  

 

Looking back down at BT.

Luckily for us, we’d stopped at a slightly wider section of the road, albeit a very rocky section, where thankfully there was just enough room for DB to do a 3 million point turn.   I did plenty of running round the truck giving directions every so often I’d move a particularly vicious looking rock, well if I could, luckily for me most of the nasty rocks were moveable, then off we’d go again.

 

This is where we did our 3 million point turn.

Eventually we got turned around and I hopped back in the truck.   We hadn't come as far as we’d thought a mile, mile and a half, maybe two at the most, but it had taken us ages. 

 

This was one of the views on the way back that is Bill Williams Mountain in the distance, isn’t it gorgeous?

We bounced our way back and we were soooo glad to see that cattle grid and get back onto the other road I tell you it felt like driving on the interstate after the forest road!

This is how driving through one of the old railroad cuttings looked on our return journey.   I have to admit I didn’t realise how narrow and steep it was until I saw it from this angle.

I checked on the internet afterwards and someone else driving the same make and model of truck as BT had tried to drive that road from the opposite end looking for boon docking sites.   They'd turned around for the same reasons we did, so we definitely made the right decision.   Had we not, who knows we might still be out there!

 

Someday I would like to see where that road goes, but only if we we’re with someone in a jeep who knows how to drive these types roads better than we do!

 

Have fun, we are!

Return to Dog Town Lake

When we’re staying in Williams, one of our favourite hikes is around Dog Town Lake, on this trip the campground was closed for the winter and despite it being another fabulous day we almost had the place to ourselves.

  

It’s a lovely hike and part way round you cross the creek, the very first time we did this walk, the lake was very full and the creek was so deep and wide there was absolutely no way we could cross without swimming, so we had to backtrack into the forest for about a half a mile to get round.  This time it was very low so we didn’t have to do that.

Despite the water being low an osprey was busy diving for fish,

I just managed to catch as it flew away after diving into the lake.

Bill Williams Mountain

It was a lovely afternoon and we enjoyed our hike around the lake. 

A few days later we headed back and walked part of the Ponderosa Trail on its way to Davenport Hill, it’s about a 5 mile round trip and is very pretty, I say part as we didn’t walk all the way, but that was down to me. 

Partway along the trail

gorgeous autumn colour

Even though I walk in forests quite happily all the time, I don’t actually much enjoy being surrounded by trees, and, every so often I throw a wobbler (even at home where there is absolutely no possibility of bears or mountain lions hiding behind every tree trunk!) maybe it was because it was soooooo quiet, I don’t know.   So we turned back, but I’m sure we’ll hike that trail on another trip

Have fun, we are!