ZR2'ers Unite!:

We all met up at 8:30 a.m. at the Texaco station at exit 98 off of I-10 in Tonopah, Arizona. Everyone but Ron was there when I arrived at 8:30 sharp. So I gassed up then chatted with everyone while we waited for Ron. Once Ron got there and gassed up, we wasted no time in heading out to hit the trails.

We had a bit of difficulty finding the start of the first trail, but we did eventually find it. Since both Kyle and I had trail directions Kyle led most of the way, and I was very content to sit at the back of the pack and be the rear trail boss. Sometimes it is nice not to lead, even though you do eat more dust.

The first trail of the day took us between two wilderness areas; the Big Horn Wilderness and the Secret Springs Wilderness. The trail was a corridor between the two, so we had very few options as far as side trails. Kyle did manage to get us down the wrong road once though. (Another advantage of being the rear trail boss is that you can blame other people for getting lost.) *smile* Since we had to flip around when we hit the dead-end, I ended up as the Fearless Leader for a while.

We were all alone out there and didn't see another living soul the entire time, which helped us enjoy the amazing scenery we passed through. Mikey was as happy as a kitten following a leaky cow and thoroughly enjoyed the trail. Shortly after I ended up in the lead, something happened that I have come to expect when I am in the lead: THE UNEXPECTED. The road dove right into a rather large pond and exited about 150 feet further after taking a right turn. Our options were to turn back, or brave the pond. Well, in reality we only had one option. No retreat. No surrender. Brave the pond. The potential problem lay in the fact that we had absolutely no idea how deep the water was, and judging by the mud at the edge of the pond, crossing the pond was likely to be a very sticky proposition.

In all honesty, I expected to get stuck. With that in mind, I got out my tow rope and attached it to my rear shackle and just let it drag behind me so that it would be easier to get a kick pull back out if I didn't make it far. I didn't want to have to sit in deep water any longer than I had to. I also didn't want to gun it and go plowing into the unknown at breakneck speed. I eased The Beast into the water and got a little nervous as the road kept diving fairly steeply, with a dip on the right-hand side. The bottom of the pond seemed fairly solid though, so I kept on going. Once my tail pipe was submerged I punched the gas to overcome the back pressure and keep the water out and motored right through to the other side with no difficulties. At it's deepest point, I would estimate that the water was about 3-4 feet deep. Once across, I yelled some pointers to the rest of the group then watched everyone cross. Here is Shane motoring across the pond in his U-ZR2. We learned something very interesting from Mikey after leaving the pond. He told us that there aren't any firm bottoms in Texas. The radio went silent for a moment before he explained that he was talking about the mud in the pond.

Shortly after the pond crossing, we took a side road to another stock pond where we had lunch. The rest of the trip was characterized by more beautiful scenery, plenty of dry wash crossings, and more winding across the desert floor.

We exited the trail on Eagle Eye Road, and turned right to head up to the second trail of the day. The Harquahala Peak trail is a rather steep trail that goes up to the top of Harquahala Peak, site of the historic Smithsonian solar observatory. The trail isn't all that difficult and could have done the whole trail in 2wd if it hadn't gotten too steep to keep my rpms up in first gear. The road definitely offers breath-taking views of the desert, and we were all having difficulty keeping our eyes on the twisting trail.

Because of the severity of the climb, Mikey was having overheating problems so we stopped once we hit a relatively flat spot in the road to let his engine cool down a bit. While there, a couple of us saw some mule deer scramble down the mountainside. Once underway again, it didn't take us long to reach the top of the highest point in southwestern Arizona, at 6921 feet. The view from the top was amazing. Everyone wandered around a bit and checked out the old Smithsonian Solar Observatory.

The obervatory was built in 1920 to aid in determining the effect of the sun on the earth. Measurements there were compared with measurements at another site in Chile. This particular location was chosen because the cloudless skies and low humidity lent themselves well to solar monitoring. Life at the observatory was not an easy one. All supplies had to be packed in from many miles away, water had to be carried up the mountain, and the only regular guest to the observatory was a local miner, who was often the person hauling supplies for those at the observatory. The site was only used for five years.

The original observatory building is still pretty well intact, at least on the outside. The inside is apparently a mass of support beams to prevent the building from collapse. A second building at the site, built two years after the first, was essentially non-existent. All that remained was some of the concrete foundation. The site has a number of very helpful interpretive signs that gave a sense of what life at the observatory would have been like. The journey was definitely worth the effort.

Eventually we had to head back down. It was late afternoon by this point, and we didn't have time to tackle either of the two other trails that I had hoped to get to that day. When we neared the interstate again, we all stopped to say our good-byes and exchange addresses so that we could all get copies of the video that Mikey's father-in-law took during the trip. Once on the interstate, Shan realized that we needed to get some dinner before heading up to Payson to see my folks and take care of some post-wedding stuff, so got on the CB and convinced Kyle, Jauri and Ron to join us. After that, we all went our separate ways, thinking about our next trip in the wonderful Arizona wilderness.

If you're in the Tucson area, drop me a line and we can go wheelin' sometime.