Day 9 April 21st, 2003
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We headed straight East out of Lake Havasu City and the road went past some mines and went straight up into the mountains on "Fall Springs Wash" trail. You can barely see the town down below in this picture. What I forgot was this was a dead end route as they could never build a trail over the mountain beacause they were so steep and rugged. After miles of riding up in these mountans we had to turn back and re-evaluate our route for the day. |
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Re--routing didn't take long as we had so many trails to ride in the area. Here we are heading down a well graded road which would deteriorate into the possibly impassable Bill Williams River. Our mission---if we were to accept---"Conquer the sometimes impassable Bill Williams river".
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I read about a dude in a jeep that tried this river and rated it as very difficult----only for the reason you had to cross the Bill Williams river so many times. A very nice forest service lady stopped us right before this picture and said "oh you can't go in there you obviously don't have 4-wheel drive" !!! No-shit. We said we were going to take a look see----but I was going to conquer the Bill Williams River---or so I thought. |
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| I guess it was a good thing I read about that jeeper going down this trail----cause I plainly remember him saying don't enter any water without first walking it and checking its depth with a stick. The water was murky which is unusual out here--most rivers are very clear. It would have been stupid for me to bail off in this water 2,000 miles from home. I held off the itch I had to just blow right thru these waters and waded in to check the depth-----it was just too deep and I searched and searched to find another way around----there wasn't any--crap. I wasn't thru with the Bill Williams (and you'll find out it wasn't thru with me) so me and Kenny would attack from up river again, later on---but for now we turned away from the river. |  |
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I have failed on 2 trails this morning but the riding was still very good as Kenny said---yes it was!! Thats what I like about Kenny--always enjoying the riding no matter what. I then rode South again on route 95 about 3 miles and rode the Red Mountain Trail which ran into the Gray Eagle Mine Trail which took us here at the Gray Eagle Mine. Kenny was the first to weasle over the fence as I would never do such a thing !! Kenny was very nervous looking down the seeminly bottomless hole. One slip and your dead. |
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| Monkey see-----Monkey do !!!! |  |
| I had heard about this place called the "Desert Bar". Sounded un-real to me as it described this desert bar out in the middle of nowhere in the desert with no electricity. This place is only open on weekends and is pretty difficult to get--a jeep would probably be required and its a long way in. I wondered what kind of people would come out here to drink beer in the middle of nowhere. Maybe it was best it was closed--as it was the middle of the week. |  |
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Right next to the bar was this church----now this definitely looks like something straight out of a Clint Eastwood movie--maybe "The Outlaw Josey Wales". "Why looky here, we got us a Josey Wales--Watch em' Blanch, watch em'-- He's meaner than a rattlesnake and twice as fast" !!!! Now this is really weird---from a distance we thought it was an old wooden structure with a copper roof. It was all bare steel--and all of it was welded and its just all rusted up. Probably last forever out here----I don't have any idea when it was built. This was all posted no trespassing. |
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| And here is the bar----a pretty weird structure--and look at that 1920's Model A sittin' there---it looked brand new. You had to walk over a little covered bridge over a deep wash to get to it---you can see it just to the left of the Model A. We pondered what those 2 towers might be but couldn't come up with anything. Probably had a high powered rifle pointed at us. |  |
| We found the "4 peaks Trail" and was in awe at the desert beauty on this trail. Here we have one lone seguaro cactus standing guard to this beautiful peak. |  |
| We found many open mines in this area. If it wasn't for my GPS we would have never found any of them as they were marked as waypoints on it. |  |
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This is the same one Kenny was looking down. Its in two sections---In the top part of the picture you see a ladder where they went down the mine----in the bottom part of the picture is a bigger area where they hoisted ore carts up the shaft. We thought the 2 big 4X4 timbers you see acted as a rail to stabilize the ore cart. Right when I took this picture--Kenny had droppped a big rock down the shaft--see it?? When listened for several seconds before we heard it hit anything----I can only imagine how deep it was, and there might have been some horizontal shafts down below---who knows!! Pretty interesting no doubt. |
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| Not far from the mine above----we ran across this open mine shaft. |  |
| Don't walk around here in the dark or you will be so sorrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyy !!!!!!! |  |
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Wooopps !!!! I gave the ole' KLR all the throttle she had in 2nd gear but she finally dug in and over we went. |
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Kenny said I got in his way-----but his problem was he had way to much horsepower and almost shredded another tire in the deep powdery sand. Look at him---he's grinnin' ear to ear !!! No kickstand needed here. After this trail we headed to Parker for gas, food and a motel------besides I was still having great intestinal troubles and was almost out of toilet paper :) Montezumas revenge I guess !!! |
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