Kentucky Camp

Another lovely sunny morning and another trip to highway 83, this time we were in search of Kentucky Camp, an old gold mining camp on the eastern side of the Santa Rita Mountains. 

We took unpaved Gardner Canyon Road, it’s only about 5 miles from the highway but part way along we thought we’d taken a wrong turn somewhere as we came to Private Property sign.   We had visions of turning up in the front yard of a ranch, but it actually meant the land on either side of the road was private.

 

The parking area is ¼ mile from the camp, you can only drive down if you’re actually renting a cabin in the camp, a guy who was staying down there told us the night skies were absolutely fabulous. 

One of the cabins you can rent.

Gold was discovered at Kentucky Camp in the 1870’s, it was what is called placer gold and the easiest way to separate it from sand and gravel is with water.   There’s not a lot of water around here, so miners either had to haul dirt to one of the few streams or bring in water on the backs of mules.   I bet you probably made almost as much money hauling in water and selling it as you did from finding gold.   The gold was soon worked out and by 1886 most of the miners had moved on.

At the turn of the 20^th century a mining engineer from California, James Stetson (I wonder if he was any relation to the hat company?) had the idea of building a channel of water to bring spring snowmelt to a reservoir that would last 10 months and keep a placer mine operating to extract the remaing gold.   The cost of building all this was between $125,000 and $175,000.   Parts of the channel are still there. 

The assay office.

A wealthy businessman, George McAneny, agreed to invest and the Santa Rita Water & Mining Company was formed.   The buildings at Kentucky Camp became the headquarters.   The day before a stockholder meeting James Stetson fell from a third floor hotel window in Tucson and died, George McAneny got tied up in a contentious divorce and the company failed.   So after spending all that money to build the channel, the company only made about $3,000.00 before it failed.   Glad I wasn’t a stockholder!

 

The buildings were eventually acquired by Louis Hummel and the land was used as a cattle ranch until the 1960’s.

 

I think this building was used as the old ranch house.

   

Now part of the Coronado National Forest, some of the buildings have been stablised using volunteer labour and money from the television series ‘Young Riders’ that was filmed in the area in the early 1990’s and work is still being carried out. 

The long distance Arizona Trail, which runs from the Mexican border to Utah, also runs through the camp, the trail as it comes into Kentucky Camp.

Arizona Trail mileage sign at the parking area.

Yet another interesting place to visit, there is so much to see and do in this part of Arizona and I don’t think we’ll ever see it all. 

Have fun, we are!

Patagonia Sonoita Creek Preserve

Our destination today was The Nature Conservancy, Patagonia Sonoita Creek Preserve which is just off highway 82 in Patagonia.   Patagonia is a friendly little town, with a great coffee shop called The Gathering Grounds,

 

it is also a town where you really do need to abide by the posted speed limit, as the Marshalls are, quite rightly, hot on offenders.  It’s also about the only place I’ve ever seen huge semi truck’s slow down and actually do just that.  

The visitor centre at the preserve was our first stop for information and a trail map, entrance is free if you’re a member of the Nature Conservancy, otherwise it’s $6.00 each.

Five miles of Sonoita Creek are a perenial water source and the first two miles of that run through the preserve.   The creek is home to some of the most endangered species of acquatic plants and fish in the Southwest.

Along the trail by the creek 

The remains of an old railroad that used to run from Benson, AZ to Guaymas, Mexico from 1882 until 1962 are now part of a trail that runs through the preserve.

 

The preserve is also home to more that 22 species of birds of prey, we can recognise a hawk and a few other easily recognisable birds when we see them, but we’re not birders so mostly we just see, well, a bird.  We can however recognise these two birds. 

Vermillion Flycatcher

Humming birds at the visitor centre

This bird was tucked in the branches of the tree along with the vermillion flycatcher, but we have no idea what it is, probably something really common.

The very green area is a cinega which means that there is a higher level of groundwater, it’s what is left of a wetland area that once upon a time may have extended into what is now the town of Patagonia.   As groundwater in the Southwest recedes cinegas are rapidly disappearing.

A view of the mountains from the trail.

Even though we’re definitely not birders, we enjoyed our trip through the preserve. 

Have fun, we are!

Swimming Pools & Movie Stars, Empire Ranch, Sonoita, AZ

Established in 1871 Empire Ranch, now part of the Las Cinegas National Conservation Area, has a fascinating history, that really does include swimming pools and movie stars.

 

From Tucson, we took I10 to the Highway 83 exit and followed the road until we came to the brown visitor sign, turning onto the ranch we followed the dirt road across rolling grasslands until we came to the ranch headquarters.

 

The original house was a small 4 room building, over the years it was altered and extended to suit the times and whoever was living there, at one time there was also an outdoor swimming pool.

The yard in front of the house.

What looked like an old stock shed

The view from the yard.

As befits a busy ranch, the kitchen was obviously well used, although I was a bit worried about the rattlesnake warning!

Empire Ranch was also used as a location for quite a few films, including Red River and the Outlaw Josey Wales, episodes of Bonanza were also filmed there.   John Wayne, Burt Lancaster and Maureen O’Hara also stayed at the ranch while they were filming. 

This photograph was on one of the informational boards inside the ranch house.

We took the ½ mile Heritage Loop Trail past the leopard frog breeding ponds, sadly we didn’t actually see any.

The trail continued along the dry creek and past enormous old cottonwood trees.   Which is when we found out that it’s not a good idea to sit under a cottonwood on a windy day as they are self pruning, so you just might end up with a huge branch falling on your head!   Not good! 

At the end of the trail you walk past the ‘new’ ranch house that was built in the 1950’s.

It’s a very atmospheric place a lot of restoration work has been done and more is planned.   There are fabulous views across to the mountains and on a quiet Sunday afternoon, we practically had the place to ourselves.   Entrance is free, but donations are appreciated, if you’re in the area and like old ranches it’s definitely worth a visit. 

Have fun, we are!

When possible make a U turn!

Last year our trusty Garmin sat nav suddenly announced that 'there are no roads in the area' and switched itself off.   You might think this happened out on a dirt road miles from anywhere, not so, at the time we were on I10 in the middle of Tucson.   Luckily we knew where we were going.

 

We left it for a couple of days, tried again and it seemed fine, then it happened again and again.   To us the whole idea of a sat nav is for that extra navigational help when you're somewhere strange, so it seemed like it was time to get a new one.

 

After much research into sat navs designed for RV's our first choice, as we liked our Garmin, was a truckers Garmin.   But I have this quaint old fashioned idea that I actually like to see things before I buy them and as I couldn't find one anywhere to look at before I bought it that took care of that.   So then it was a straight choice between Rand McNally and Magellan, both had pros and cons, in the end we, okay I, as I do most of the navigating and map reading, chose the Magellan.

I'm beginning to think it was the wrong choice.   Why?   Because despite having the system set for the correct length, width and height of our truck and fifth wheel.   On the 'mostly freeway' setting on our way to Rincon East RV Resort, it always but always wants to direct us right through the middle of town and then just as we're arriving, it directs of off the road the RV resort is on around a housing sub-division across the street before directing us back to the road it just directed us off.   Hmmm.........

I got online and spoke to a lovely lady at Magellan, who got exactly the same results as I did.   She suggested removing some turns,  okay that can be done, fiddly and time consuming, but it can be done.    But what about when we're in a strange town and I haven't got a clue where I am, how do I know it's going to send me round a housing sub division when there is no need for me to be there? 

While we've been out and about exploring (obviously without our fifth wheel attached!) I've set the sat nav on different settings, 'avoid freeways', 'fastest time', 'shortest time', I even extended the width to 14ft and every single setting sends us round that sub-division!    So I'll be emailing Magellan and asking them to look into this and see what's happening.    And yes, we do have all the latest maps and updates on it. 

So now here we are with a fairly new, very expensive sat nav, that I don't think I particularly trust, don't ya just love technology?

All I can say is thank goodness we always have directions from whichever RV park we're heading for and for good old fashioned paper maps!

Have fun, we are!

  

 



Box Canyon, Wickenburg

In view of our last disastrous dirt road drive I’d hesitated to suggest exploring Box Canyon on the Hassayampa River but the lady in the visitor centre assured us it really was an easy drive.   So on another gorgeous sunny morning (whoever said you get fed up of constant sunshine hasn’t got a clue what they’re talking about!) off we went.

 

After heading north on highway 93 we turned right onto the scenic loop road just after marker 195.   Even though it’s marked as a primitive road, it’s a good graded gravel/dirt road.

 

It follows the river and at one point descends into a sandy wash unsurprisingly it’s marked as a flash flood area, the views are spectacular.

We followed the road for seven miles until we came to the ‘no dumping’ sign and turned right into the parking area, if it wasn’t for the sign you’d easily drive past. There was a fire ring and when we got out there was broken glass, thankfully we hadn’t parked in it. 

The parking area

Looking towards the river

The road down to the river has plenty of tyre tracks, so you could probably drive down, but it’s a bit rough so I don’t think for one minute DB would’ve been happy taking BT down it, especially not after last time!

Down in the river

A  chap panning for gold in a small stream of running water, told us there’s quite a lot of gold still to be found in the area.   We noticed some white plastic pipes sticking up, these we were reliably informed by our gold panning friend, were claim markers.   Each claim is 20 acres and there is a marker in each corner  north, south, east and west.

The entrance to Box Canyon is almost hidden in the trees, it’s only small but very pretty, although it’s not somewhere I’d like to be if it was pouring with rain.

We continued our hike, we were walking mostly in soft sand, it gives your legs a really great workout but it’s hard work, we were looking for the ‘Majestic Mine’ that we’d seen marked on the map.

The whole area is pretty with lots of saguaro dotting the mountain sides, the rock formations were interesting and I’m sure our geologist guide from Saturday would’ve been able to tell us all sorts of interesting facts about what we were seeing.

When we arrived at where we thought the mine should be, we couldn’t see anything that looked even remotely like it could be a mine.   Although searching the surrounding mountain sides there were some suspiciously straight lines, and what looked to us, like spoil heaps,  so we think it might be the mine and if it is, the access must be from the top of the mountain.

We decided we’d explore the river the other way towards The Narrows, lots of yellow butterflies were fluttering around some water on the gravel.

Neither of us had realised how hot it had become until we started walking in the shade, which was lovely. 

There was more water in this section of the river and some government guys were busy measuring things, although they didn’t actually say what they were doing we wondered if it was something to do with water flow.

Further along there was obviously what was someones camp on a ledge above the river, I’m not sure I’d like to camp there as although it would be pleasant in the heat of the day, it’d soon be dark down there and just a bit creepy, maybe it belonged to someone working a nearby claim. 

We passed a gauging station, the ladder goes right to the top of the rocks, so I’m not sure how deep it gets down here during the monsoon season.

A little further along we arrived at the narrows,

it’s very pretty, there’s more water here but it was too deep and to wide for us (okay me) to cross without taking my boots off, so we turned back.

On the way back to the truck

Heading back

We had a great day, and would love to come back here and explore more, if you had an ATV you could probably drive all the way back to the RV park.   That’d be fun! 

Hmm, somehow the Cheshire Cats name has appeared in the middle of the photograph, sorry about that, I'll check my settings before I post again.

Have fun, we are!

Vulture Mine Tour, Wickenburg

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