Winter this year was mild in Central Oregon, but it's still my least favorite season, and it's much more fun to go on a road trip to Arizona for six weeks. I did not stay in one place long, instead I drove in a big loop around the state, stopping at various places to ride. As per usual, rather than staying at the popular and overpopulated areas such as Goldfield, Horspitality, or other private facilities, I did my own thing, and most of my camping was dispersed, which is incredibly easy to do in Arizona. Every trailhead or recreation area has somewhere you can camp with horses, most of the time the areas can accommodate any sized rig, and it's a very horse friendly state in general.
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Sophie's Flat.
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I left in mid January, and did the drive in three days, stopping first in Winnemucca, Nevada, at the fair grounds. You have to call ahead, there is a lady that lives on site, and she will tell you to just self pay when you arrive. There are a variety of different stalls to choose from, but this fairgrounds does not have bigger pens as an option, instead there are three round pens, and so I chose one of those. It is $15.00 per horse and $10.00 for dry camping. They also have plenty of RV parking areas with hookups for $25.00. There is a bathroom with showers (you have to pay for a shower, with quarters ) and an RV dump.
The next day I drove to Scotty's Junction and dispersed camped along Hwy 267 which is one of the entrances into Death Valley. This highway is currently closed farther down near Scotty's Castle, and has been since 2015 when a flood did an incredible amount of damage to the road. They are working on it and it will reopen, possibly next year.
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| Awesome sunset at Scotty's Junction, Nevada. |
On the third day I arrived at Congress, AZ, just outside of Wickenburg. I made my way over to Ghost Town Rd. and I was greeted by a herd of javelina's crossing the road. I would continue to see a lot of javelina's (wild pigs) over the course of my trip, but was never able to get any pictures, since they scurry away very quickly. Ghost Town Rd. is a piece of BLM sandwiched in between state land, with a lot of dispersed camping spots, especially on a loop road that features two cemeteries. There were a significant amount of RVers camped there, but I found a spot right before the second cemetery. It's best not to take a truck and trailer past that spot, since the road gets a lot rougher.
I proceeded to put up my portable electric corral, not an easy task, since the ground was quite hard and rocky. The better area to camp if you have to put posts in the ground, is along the main road, off to the left, but I didn't know that until the next day.
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| My camp spot at Ghost Town Rd. |
I enjoyed the warm evening, wearing my shorts, and being quite delighted to be in Arizona. I was very close to civilization but my cell service was sketchy for some reason. This would become a common theme, usually close to towns, I would have crappy service, but if I was out in the middle of absolutely nowhere, it would work great!
The next day I went for my first ride over to an old mining area, then continued on and climbed a steep rocky hill to a viewpoint. Then I looped around on dirt roads, finding a livestock water tank, before I finally headed back. Livestock water tanks are a big deal in Arizona, since water is scarce. They are obviously meant for cows and wildlife, but your horse will be especially happy to see one on a long ride with zero other water sources. It is illegal in Arizona to camp within 1/4 of a mile of livestock water, tempting as that may be.
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| Old mining area. |
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| At the top of the hill. |
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| At the viewpoint. |
After my ride a lady named Phyllis stopped in, she was horse camping over by Vulture Peak and was checking out other areas to potentially move to. She asked me about the area and how the riding was, and after some introductions, it turns out she knew of me from following my blogs for years. (Phyllis, if you are reading this, I did look for you over by Vulture Peak!)
That evening I wandered around through the cemeteries, because what else do you do all by yourself as it is getting dark! The oldest marked grave I found was from 1895.
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| The pioneer cemetery. |
The next day I drove over to Sophie's Flat near Wickenburg. There is a large parking area for trailers where you can camp, (or you can disperse camp along the road ) and there is a bathroom. The ground was fairly hard there as well, so I decided to wait until after my ride to make a decision on whether I would stay there or camp elsewhere. You can also camp at Constellation Park, which I passed on the way to the trailhead. You used to be able to get water across the street from the park, at the rodeo grounds, but I was told, by Phyllis, that they no longer allow anyone to access it.
I did a fairly short loop ride following the marked trails, which were A through C. There is a map at the trailhead, but it wasn't very detailed and had differing information from what I actually came across while riding. However it is easy to follow either the trails or the OHV roads, which are separated.
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| Trails are marked at Sophie's Flat. |
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| At Sophie's Flat. |
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| This Saguaro was pink, not sure why. |
You can certainly do more riding there, but I decided not to stay longer, so after my ride I drove over to Vulture Peak instead. There is a huge area to dry camp off of Vulture Mine Road on the left, before you get to the trailhead, but it was full of RVers, as was the trailhead itself, so I continued on until I came across a nice spot about half a mile away on the opposite side of the peak. This trailhead, and general area has ALOT of cholla, which for anyone that does not know, is a nasty cactus with barbs, that you want to stay away from.
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| The dreaded cholla. |
Speaking of cholla, I had set up my corral very far away from any of it, but while my horse was innocently eating her hay, I looked over and she had a piece of cholla embedded in her upper lip. Even though the main cactus plant wasn't close by, sometimes pieces of it are scattered on the ground. She is a wonderfully patient horse and without even needing to halter her, I picked the stuff out of her lip. This wasn't fun for either of us. It's best to use pliers or something like that, a comb can work, touching it is not recommended, it's very painful even with gloves on. I scoured the ground in her corral for a long time after that, making sure there weren't any more pieces lurking about.
This particular spot did not have cell service, but if I hiked up a small hill nearby, I would get it.
Although I had enjoyed two nice weather days thus far, my phone had informed me that the weather was about to change, and it sure did.
It rained hard all night, and all the next morning. The high daytime temperature was 46 degrees which felt like being back at home, so I bundled up, wearing chaps and several other upper layers and rode over towards the peak.
I partially followed the actual hiking trail but also used the dirt roads, which are often used by ATV's, to loop around.
Since that was a short ride, I also rode on some more dirt roads across the highway. Like most of Arizona, once you are on a big piece of BLM, it is really unlimited on how long you can ride for.
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| Heading towards Vulture Peak. |
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| Vulture Peak, on a gloomy day. |
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| On the other side of Vulture Mine Rd. |
That night as it was getting dark, I was walking through my horse's corral and I stepped right into another batch of a different kind of unidentified cactus, and got stabbed in the Achilles. This caused me to hobble around in pain for about a day and a half. Everything is pretty prickly in Arizona, you get used to it, even my horse learned quickly not to walk too close to bushes, since a lot of them have thorns.
On the way out of Wickenburg I stopped at the Chevron to get water. You have to pay for water, but the guy didn't charge me as much as he was supposed to, it was early in the morning, and no one else was there. This Chevron can get really backed up with horse trailers and RVers lined up to get water and use the dump station. For example weeks later on my way back home, I stopped there for gas and was going to get water again, but the lineup was long and I have a Featherlite which means my tanks etc. are on the opposite side of my trailer from everyone else's. I can't exactly get into to the lineup backwards, people don't take too kindly to that.
No offense to anyone that loves Wickenburg, but it is my least favorite part of Arizona, so I had not planned to spend a lot of time there.
My next destination was in the Cave Creek/Carefree area, the Bronco Trailhead in the Tonto National Forest.
To be continued....
