Category: Road Trips

Mount Tipton Wilderness Picture of the Week

Since our trip to Pearce Ferry, I’ve written about the Grand Wash Cliffs, and rightly so. Last week, I mentioned that they formed the western edge of the Colorado Plateau and that the great river bisects the cliffs. But the Hualapai Valley has another mountain range on its west flank, and they’re the Cerbat Mountains. They fill the 23 miles between Kingman and Dolan Springs. On the drive to Las Vegas on US 93, they’re to the east side of the highway as you travel north through the Detrital Valley.

There are some old mines located in the Cerbats; Cerbat, Mineral Park, and Chloride. Traveling north from Kingman, you first pass the ghost town of Cerbat, which is hidden at the end of a challenging (4wd) road. The next is Mineral Park, which is due east of Santa Clause (that’s another story unto itself). Finally, the biggest one is Chloride—whose tailings are visible from Highway 93. I think Chloride is still active, but I don’t know for what they’re digging.

Mt. Tipton Wilderness Area - The jagged peaks in the Mt. Tipton Wilderness Area are at the north end of the Cerbat Mountain Range.
Mt. Tipton Wilderness Area – The jagged peaks in the Mt. Tipton Wilderness Area is at the north end of the Cerbat Mountain Range.

More interesting to me is the Mount Tipton Wilderness Area, which is almost at the northern end of the Cerbat Range. At 7148 Mt. Tipton is the tallest peak, but the wilderness area also has some jagged peaks that made me stop to take this week’s featured image—even though the sun had gone behind the looming storm clouds. I named the photo Mt. Tipton Wilderness, and it shows dried grasses and creosote bush against the barren granite mountains.

On the whole, I enjoyed our drive to Pearce Ferry. There were a lot of beautiful sights found there, and I can see returning in the future to do more serious photography. That’s the downside of these trips. They’re to photography what Cliff Notes are to books. To get the best results, you need to study and understand the subject.

On the other hand, we’ve only begun to explore Arizona’s back roads, and there’s so much more to see. I feel like I wasted the first two-thirds of my adulthood working for a paycheck. However, I understand that I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t. I hope I have enough time to finish it all.

You can see a larger version of Mt. Tipton Wilderness on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy seeing it. Next week I have a surprise for you. Something completely different, so I hope we’ll see you then.

Until next time — jw

Garnet Mountain Picture of the Week

When I was a younger man, I had too many hobbies. Besides photography, I raced cars, fished, listened to music, and gorged on food and wine. Since retiring, we’ve downsized. I’ve given up cars, fishing, and expensive restaurants. We live on a pension now, so photography is my last indulgence—and it’s a good thing that I don’t have to buy film anymore, else I’d have to throw that out the window too.

It took a while to adapt to Arizona living. Sure, half the year is divine, but summers are hell—literally. So, as every good Zonie knows, you head for the hills to escape the heat and humidity of the monsoons. The other option is to close the drapes, lock the doors, and hibernate in front of the telly. As an aspiring angler, I bought a new edition of Bob Hirsch’s Best 100 Arizona Fishing Holes every year. They never changed, but I always read the ink off my copy by the time the Outdoors Show rolled around. I preferred fishing for trout instead of bass, so we’d make our pilgrimages to where the waters were cold: the Mogollon Rim, White Mountains, Lake Powell, or Lee’s Ferry—if the weather was good.

On the trip that Queen Anne and I made to Pierce Ferry for this month’s topic, I kept asking myself, “Why haven’t I been here before? This part of Arizona is beautiful and very photogenic.” I think the simple answer is that there are no trout here, so I didn’t care. Of course, there’s the Black Canyon below Hoover Dam, but it’s 675′ above sea level. That’s lower than Phoenix, and black rocks surround it. Besides, I got skunked on the one trip that we made, so I never went back.

Hualapai Valley, as I said, is Basin-and-Range topography—like Nevada. It’s flanked on the east by the southern end of the Grand Wash Cliffs, while the Cerbat Mountains line the west. The valley floor’s low spot is Red Lake—which is dry most of the year. Orchards surround the lake, but I don’t know how successful they are. Hualapai Valley is also home to a large grove of Joshua Trees, which fills an area about the same size as ours in Yavapai County.

It’s the Grand Wash Cliffs that caught my attention on the map. They’re a long string of mountains—above and below the Colorado River, forming the western edge of the Colorado Plateau. They’re the transition to the Great Basin Desert.

Garnet Mountain - Joshua and sage grow to the foot of snow-covered Garnet Mountain.
Garnet Mountain – Joshua and sage grow to the foot of snow-covered Garnet Mountain.

This week’s featured image, Garnet Mountain, shows Joshua Trees and sage growing to the mountain’s feet. The mountain is over 6,000 ft high and has snow from previous winter storms. The unnamed pointy peak is closer but a thousand feet shorter, so that’s why it’s not snow-capped. Together, they show two of the geological forces that shaped Arizona. Block shapes are generally uplifts caused by plate tectonics, while pointy mountains are usually volcanic. I like what we saw on this visit, so I’m planning a trip to the Colorado River’s north side later this year, but to do that, I’ll need to travel via Utah or Nevada, so I’ll need some slot machine money.

You can see a larger version of Garnet Mountain on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy seeing it. Join us next week as we drive home and stop for more photos.

Until next time — jw

Grand Wash Cliffs Picture of the Week

I love those DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteers. I have about a dozen of them stashed on my office bookshelf, one for each state that we’ve traveled. Whenever Anne and I go on one of our jaunts, I toss at least one in the truck. I try to be careful with them, so they’ll last, but I’m regularly replacing my Arizona edition because I use it so often.

Last month while looking for new places to explore, I realized that there are four pages in the Arizona Gazetteer where I’ve never been, not in the 48 years that I’ve called Arizona home. The pages are easy to find, as they’re the first two and the last two. The areas covered by these pages are The Arizona Strip—east of Nevada and south of Utah north of the Colorado River—and the southeast corner of the state. I’ve never been to the Chiricahuas. Isn’t that hard to believe? I’ve decided to fix that by making trips to our northwest this year, and the southeast corner next year.

With that in mind, February’s topic will be the trip that her majesty and I made to Pearce Ferry this week. It’s not a difficult trip as you get off Interstate 40 on Kingman’s Stockton Hill Road. You go 40 miles north on that road, then you turn right on the Pearce Ferry Road and continue until the Colorado River stops you at the other end. All but the last nine miles are paved.

What you’ll see along the way is the Great Basin Desert. More like Nevada than the Sonoran Desert that we’re used to. Stockton Hill Road runs along the east side of the Hualapai Valley and Red Lake—one of the four natural lakes in Arizona. In winter, it even comes with water, the rest of the time it’s dry. The Pearce Ferry Road section crosses the valley and runs along the Grand Wash Cliffs to Meadview. That’s where the gravel-dirt road descends to the River.

Grand Wash Cliffs - A storm front moves over the Grand Wash Cliffs at Pearce Ferry.
Grand Wash Cliffs – A storm front moves over the Grand Wash Cliffs at Pearce Ferry.

Besides the towering Grand Wash Cliffs and muddy Colorado emerging from the Grand Canyon, there’s nothing much happening at the Ferry. Until a couple of years ago, it was the place where Grand Canyon rafters hauled out of Lake Mead. Because of the ongoing drought, the lake is so low that the boat ramp is high and dry. Now boaters have to use South Cove. It’s 23 miles away by road, but double that by water.

I took this week’s featured image near the deserted boat ramp. It shows the colorful Grand Wash Cliffs under a brooding sky. The storm front that you see greeted us on our arrival and followed us home, bringing rain to Congress the next day. I call this image Grand Wash Cliffs (At Pearce Ferry).

I’m also including a second image this week at no extra charge. I wanted to show the boat ramp struggling to reach the muddy river. The next launching place is at South Cove around the peninsula in the photo’s background. By the time the river passes South Cove, the river flows into Lake Mead, and most of the silt drops out of the water, so its color is blue (and high white banks because of the low water level). This second photo is for reference, so I called it Dry Ramp.

Pearce Ferry Boat Ramp - Lake Mead's water is low enough that the boat ramp isn't usable.
Pearce Ferry Boat Ramp – Lake Mead’s water is low enough that the boat ramp isn’t usable.

You can see a larger version of Grand Wash Cliffs on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy seeing it. Join us next week as we drive home with stops along the way to photograph more lovely scenery in Hualapai Valley.

Until next time — jw

Poachie Yucca Bloom Picture of the Week

Sometimes it’s frustrating to talk to foreigners—that is, people that live outside of Arizona, especially someone that has never visited here. When they find out you’re a Zonie, they turn their noses up, and usually, something like this falls out of their mouth, “How can you tolerate that heat, sand, and barren desert?” To them, our state is one homogenous sandbox inside an oven. They never ask, “Where in Arizona do you live?” That’s because no one has educated them about how diverse the state is.

Arizona has every climate zone but two: the Tropic and the Arctic zones. If you want to freeze your butt off, you’re out of luck, but San Diego is a good enough substitute for the tropics—at least for us. If you need something more hot and sweaty, you can always rent Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death from Amazon, but I digress. Seriously, we have snow-capped mountains, high plateaus, transition grasslands, and four kinds of deserts. What more do you need?

After making these back road junkets for over a year, I’m finding out that there are even pockets of places that are different than what I expected to find there. Locations with their micro-climate, because they get more or less sun, wind, or rain than their surroundings. That’s what I got from this month’s trip over the Poachie Mountains. We saw water in a dry river, and evergreens growing alongside tall saguaros.

Poachie Yucca Bloom - A yucca high in the Poachie Mountains that still has its flower stalk.
Poachie Yucca Bloom – A yucca high in the Poachie Mountains that still has its flower stalk.

That brings us to this week’s featured image. It’s a photo of the ubiquitous yucca, a plant found throughout the southwest. They’re most photogenic when in bloom, which is spring. The yucca sends out a shoot with white edible flowers (but not raw) that fall off after pollination, and the seeds disperse in the wind. After all of the sex part is done, the stalk dries and falls off. In this case, the stem is still there, long after I believed I could get a shot like this.

Another thing about photographing yucca, they are always too far of a hike, surrounded by other plants, or not as symmetrical as this specimen. Whoever planted this one put it in a spot specifically for lazy photographers. I tip my hat to you, Mister Gardener.

You can see a larger version of Poachie Yucca Bloom on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing it. Join us next week as we travel down another one of Arizona’s back roads.

Until next time — jw

Cholla Bay Picture of the Week

After being stopped by a river that rarely has flowing water, we spent some time along the bank of the Big Sandy, watching the calm, almost clear water flowing on its way to Alamo Lake. Queen Anne broke out a couple of water bottles, and we shared a trail bar while perusing the map to find our options.

This would have been a perfect picnic spot if we had packed a basket. Imagine sitting on a blanket in the middle of 17 Mile Drive, where it disappears beneath a river. We could see a couple of houses nearby, and later, I found out that we were in Greenwood—the site of yet another abandoned mining community. In its heyday, some three hundred souls lived and worked here. The town—named after the abundance of Palo Verde trees—didn’t last long because of its low-quality ore.

We turned around and started our journey home with the day getting late. We dallied along the way, making many stops for photos. Before the road began the ascent up the mountain, I spotted where the Big Sandy River had scoured 30-foot cliffs out of the mud banks. The formation was nearly circular, and you could imagine the raging water churning in a back eddy, a swirling whirlpool flowing against the river’s current. A large grove of Teddy Bear Cholla was growing inside the containment, so I grabbed my camera and hiked in for a shot.

Cholla Bay - The most dangerous cactus will attack you at the slightest provocation.
Cholla Bay – The most dangerous cactus will attack you at the slightest provocation.

I have a love/hate relationship with the cholla cactus. When backlit, it has a soft fuzzy look that makes you want to jump into it like a pile of autumn leaves. It’s also known as Jumping Cholla, but it doesn’t do that. Its outer joints are fragile—hair trigger, if you will—and the tips break off from the main plant with the slightest disturbance. The needles are barbed, so if you get some into your skin, you have to pull them out with pliers—one by one.

Whenever I’m near Cholla, I move slowly and cautiously. I watch the ground for snakes, cow pies, and cholla balls. It’s like walking a tight wire. I don’t look up until I stop walking. So imagine how startled I was in the middle of this field when a wild gray burro popped his head up and snorted. He was just as frightened as I was and quickly galloped off to the far side of the road, but it took all my self-control not to stumble back through the cactus patch. Once the two jackasses safely separated, I regained my composure and took this picture, which I called Cholla Bay.

You can see a larger version of Cholla Bay on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing it. Join us next week when we finish our trip to the Poachie Mountains.

Until next time — jw

Greenwood Peak Picture of the Week

I have two reasons for these monthly jaunts on Arizona roads I’ve never traveled. The first is to give me a reason to get out and shoot. The other purpose is to force me to explore places I haven’t seen, see what’s out there, and see what I haven’t seen.

What was new to me on this trip was seeing saguaro growing among the Juniper. Think about it. The mix of those two plants never happens. The saguaro stops growing at about 3000 feet because they don’t tolerate frost. To be in a field of Juniper, you’d have to travel to Sedona, Prescott, or Payson. I yammered on and on about this phenomenon, Anne, as 17 Mile Road twisted up into the Poachie Range. At one point, I was so confused that I stopped and pulled out my Garmin to check the elevation.

Greenwood Peak - One of the two prominent peaks in the Poachie Mountain Range. This one can be seen if you travel through Wikieup.
Greenwood Peak – One of the two prominent peaks in the Poachie Mountain Range. Greenwood Peak can be seen on the western horizon if you travel to Wikieup.

The Poachie Range is 30 miles long, and you see them west of U.S. 93 between Nothing and Wikieup. They’re not very tall, with its tallest peak being Arrastra Mountain at 4807 feet. So, I usually wouldn’t expect to see Juniper this low. When I checked my GPS, the elevation was 3600 Feet. All this leads me to believe that winters aren’t severe here, but more rain falls here than on the desert floors. Anyway, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

The road we traveled crossed the Poachie Range south of its prominent northern peak—Greenwood Peak. It’s the subject of this week’s featured image. It only rises to an altitude of 4300 feet, but it still provides a handsome backdrop for the unusual mixture of cactus and evergreens.

You can see a larger version of Greenwood Peak on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing it. Join us next week as we finish our trip to the Harquahala Mountains.

Until next time — jw

Big Wet Sandy Picture of the Week

“I know a shortcut.”

How many of you have heard those words and broken into a cold sweat? The road that Queen Anne and I decided to explore this month didn’t start as a shortcut. It was supposed to be a much longer trip, but it got cut short.

I had intended to drive to the north shore of Alamo Lake. There are a couple of exciting mountains I’ve seen from across the water when I last visited. The best road to get there starts in Wikieup. On my maps (including Google), there are two ways to get there. One is twenty miles south of Wikieup, and the other is about five miles south. Both roads go to the little town of Signal. I’m sure you spotted the signs on a drive to Las Vegas.

We decide to take 17 Mile Drive road. It’s the first left after the Nothing Gas Station. It’s a wide well-graded dirt road that climbs over a pass in the Poachie Mountains, then down into a valley where Signal is. The scenery at the pass is amazing—something we’ll get to later—and you can drive the route with your family station wagon. There’s one hitch along the way, and that’s crossing the Big Sandy River at Greenwood. Usually, crossing the river here could be tricky because—well, it’s deep sand, and you might get stuck without four-wheel drive.

Big Wet Sandy - The normally dry Big Sandy River flowing with water from recent rain.
Big Wet Sandy – The normally dry Big Sandy River was flowing with water from recent rain.

That wasn’t the case today. The Big Sandy was a real river and not in an ugly flash flood kind of way. Its waters flowed like it was an old river; clear and quiet. If I didn’t know better, I might have been tempted to pull out my waders and fly rod and make a few casts. It wouldn’t have been my worst day fishing, being the great angler that I am. There was no way to tell how deep the water was. It could have been two feet or a dozen, but it was not tempting enough for the police to cite me under the Stupid Motorist Law.

So, we’ll begin this month’s journey at the end and go backward. As I said, there was enough material to shoot in the mountains to fill a month, so we’ll save Alamo for another month, and we’ll start at the water’s edge.

I took this week’s featured image standing on the river’s bank. If I didn’t know, I would venture a guess that it was a photo of the Colorado River south of Bullhead City, and the mountains were in Nevada. Nope, it’s all Arizona. We’re looking north-east, and the peaks are actually on our side of the Big Sandy. The high point is Burro Peak. Although everything appears calm on this warm winter afternoon, the banks on each side of the water show erosion from raging water at some time. There are more cliff-banks like this—some higher—along the riverside past Wikieup that you can see from Highway 93. I wonder if I’ll ever again see a sight like this.

You can see a larger version of Big Wet Sandy on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing it. Join us next week as we start our return over the Poachie Mountains.

Until next time — jw