Day 2 , Part 1
Day 2 - Part 1
Grand Wash Bay to Twin Point.
In the previous weeks to our trip I has a conversation with BLM Ranger Paul. He was very helpful. When discussing where we wanted to go I found out that the Nat'l Park Service has closed several of the roads we wanted to take that still appeared open and numbered on the Arizona Strip Visitors Map that we purchased from the BLM District office in St. George Utah. It appears that this office wanting to save money is selling their outdate 2006 maps until they run out and then they will offer the new 2010 map. I passed this information on to the other drivers so when they called and ordered a map ($16.00) they requested the newest one which they did send when requested,
Our plan was to travel from the Grand Wash Bay over to the Savanic Mine trail up over the Grand Wash Cliffs to Oak Grove and then proceed south to Twin Point over looking the Grand Canyon.
With the recent closures by the Park Service we didn't have a route to the Savanic Mine. Ramger Paul had jut recently mapped out a route through BLM land connecting some older rarely used trails which allowed one to go around the Nat'l Park land and re-connect with the Savanic Mine trail north and west of Nevershine Mesa.
He provided waypoints of this new route along with some helpful information which included bringing along some large pruning shears (loppers) to cut back the vegetation as he had driven the route in a UTV not a full size vehicle. He had also placed some brown fiberglass marking posts at strategic locations to help find the route.
Usually the first time camp is broken with such a large group it takes some extra time. Finding places to put all the gear you took out the night before can be kind of like putting the tooth paste back in the tube. You know it came out of your vehicle but your having a hard time finding space to put it back in. However, we were off before 8:30 am, for which I was grateful.
First stop was the old failed homestead Tassi Ranch. An interesting story of a lone individual who for 18 years eked out a living building his stone home from local rock. The natural spring at the rear of his home was still flowing water and had a fresh crop of wild watercress.
It was about a 17 mile retrace of our prior days travels to the starting point of the new trail. I had named it the Black Widow trail in error because the print was so small on the BLM map and my eyes couldn't read the nearby spring to the starting point of Black Willow Springs. Here is what it looked like on the map.
At it's beginning point other than a faint UTV path in the wash and a brown marker post there was no indications that this was a trail intersection. We proceeded slowly following and the crossing the wash. We entered a very old unused 2 track trail that seemed to end on a small plateau. Under further examination I found it went through some bushes and down a narrow shelf road into a nearby mildly descending wash and then appeared to disappear.
For the wider vehicles like the Power Wagon this narrow shelf was a bit of a challenge but Mike managed this part fine.
Here is a movie of the group coming down the shelf road into the wash:
Once down in the wash the loppers came out as the barely visible path seemed to run from bush to bush.
I mounted a remote camera on my roof rack and captured some of this portion of the trail. You can see how I struggled to stay on route.
This starting/stopping losing the trail/finding the trail went on for few miles. After crossing a wash and climbing a steep hill we joined another faint trail and climbed up to a plateau which offered a great view of the Grand Wash Cliffs wherein lies the canyon we will climb to the Savanic Mine.
I could tell from the faint trail that no one had driven any part of this trail since the last rain and for that matter no full size vehicle had been here for maybe years. Along this path the Power Wagon had it's first flat. It was a sidewall puncture by a sharp stick. We pushed the stick through and used two plugs, Cody used his ARB pump and away we went.
This picture looks more like a CalTrans job except everyone isn't leaning on a shovel.
It took all the way 1:30 pm to finish the "Black Widow" trail approx. 18 miles. After lunch we proceeded up rather steep canyon toward the Savanic Mine.
Here is a map of our next section:
While not a very technical section, the trail was steep and I noticed the water and trans temp gauge raising so when we reached this beautiful saddle I stopped for a break to allow everyone to catch up and cool off the engines.
From here the trail entered a very narrow shelf road that would really test the Power Wagon with its wide duel rear wheels. At one point the front wheel went off the shelf and barely was able to recover. It was several hundred of feet down to the canyon floor.
I don't have any photos of this section only movies, perhaps one of the other guys will have one and I'll post it here later. Here is a brief clip of the Power Wagon, it still doesn't show how narrow and steep the drop off was.
After the shelf road we arrived at the Savanic Mine site where there were several mine shafts including a vertical one where we couldn't see the bottom. From here the trail is named the "Staircase" due to the steepness and size of the rocks in this poor quality section of the trail. For the person with rock crawling experience this section was some fun without too much challenge. However in our group were those with little or no rock crawling experience and we had the full size Power Wagon (PW) to somehow get through this section. We took a break and once the PW caught up it announced that the two plugs we put in earlier were pinched out on the steep climb and they needed to put on the spare.
A little about the PW, Mike purchased the "beast" from the State of Colorado as in it's prior life it was a forest service truck with a full utility bed. It came equipped with a 5.9 Cummins Diesel engine, Dana 60 front/70 rear axles. It is a manual transmission and has a fairly low gearing in the transfer case. Leaf springs front and rear. Mike has removed the utility bed and replaced it with a flat bed. It still weights in the area of 8000 lbs and was about to go through the challenge of it life.
For most of the rest of the afternoon I spend driving up a short ways up the staircase, then running back to help spot one of the vehicles up the next set of stairs. eventually came the PW's turn and the first obstacle included a large rock that had fallen down the hillside which required the driver to push his driver's side up the hill side some to get around it. Most the narrow vehicle had no problem but Cody provided a little extra pull for the PW in this case.
I took no photos of this section as I was very busy, but I handed the movie camera to one of the others.
Here is my friend Dan in my Tacoma. He had just flown in from London a few days before and this was his first 4wd off road trip ever. He also brought along his 83 year old dad for the adventure! He was a fast learner and did real well. This is at the starting of the Staircase.
Here is the PW going around the large rocks:
Then it powering through more of the trail, ( you didn't want to stand behind it when it spit out one of those rocks!)
Part 2 of Day 2 later......
Thanks,
Fred
Explorer 1
