Traverse the Arizona Strip Trip Expedition Year 2017... (You gotta have a catchy name, right? right.... guys.... where ya going)
We headed out from work as early as we dare without calling it a day off. We were headed to meet Kevin and his daughter near Lee’s Ferry.
I was actually glad we’d stopped to gas up here. After all the rush rush rush, it felt like we were finally at the jumping off point. Adventure ahead, literally.
The moment you hit dirt. It’s the official jumping off point. My blood pressure lowers. I’m home.
We did my usual routine. Primary dirt road to secondary to tertiary. This last one had no tracks, but the ones we laid down. It was great. Even using all three lockers and low range we were getting stuck. Yes, airing down would solve it easily, but it was interesting to be stopped in our tracks on such a low incline hill! It was great! It made me all the more sure that we’d see no one while up here in the Vermillion Cliffs.
We caught the last little bit of sunset from camp.
Kevin has a great setup. He’s got the OEM Aux fuel tank completely wired as it would have been from Toyota. He’s also got a supercharger that, although it runs hot and burns a lot of fuel, was sure cool. I just can’t justify one. In under 200 miles of dirt the next day he burnt 5 more gallons of fuel than me... He’s got smaller tires/lift and no roof rack so that was saying a lot.
Still, you know you want one.
The next morning I couldn’t sleep in. Still running on HIGH from the workweek, I was up at dawn and walking around. This was a beautiful site I could explore for several hours.
So, are they jabba the huts or dinosaur poops?
From camp our road ahead looked perfect. Just the kind of thing I like to see. Plenty of animal tracks, but nothing human.
In the distance we could see the permit only area of Coyote Buttes.
This entire area was just.... different. Just different enough to feel far away. Just different enough to really love where we were at.
It hit me while looking around that I hadn’t been back here since the day I met the mapping crew with whom I’d work with. This was the first area I drove into with Government issued GPS tracking away.
Oh well, it was time to keep moving on. This looks like the best way to get to Fredonia on dirt!
While driving along we passed the Arizona Trail as well. It’s a non-motorized trail running from Utah to Mexico through AZ. I’d love to mountain bike it some day. Recently a friend, an insane friend, broke the singlespeed mountain bike record for the 750 Mile ride in 8.5 days. He also has to carry his bike on his back through the Grand Canyon... just a little hiccup in the otherwise MTB friendly ride.
One of my favorite signs. It could say exhaust brakes or compression braking, but no, Fredonia uses the slang term, and I love that.
The gas station should be a country western album cover.
Yes, when I see an old truck or car I get sucked in like a magnet...
Next up we rallied over a hundred miles of fast dirt roads, transitioned to some very slow dirt roads, to some downright nasty dirt roads on a “short cut” I know down to the Bar 10. From there, we’d head to one of my favorite campsites on earth.
More on that in part 2.
-Tim
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