datrupr
Expedition Leader
Well, we had a couple of rigs planned before the trip, but everyone dropped out last minute. That, however, was not the case for Jacki, Elle and me. The only thing that changed was that we got to sleep in a bit on Saturday.
So, we went entirely off plan and woke up a little late on Saturday morning, packed the truck, and headed up north in the middle of a rain storm. We were not going to let a little rain spoil our fun. My initial thoughts on Saturday were to take our time getting loaded and ready and then hopefully miss the residual traffic on the way up. Well, at about 11 am sounded like a good time to head out, and traffic should be gone. Was I wrong! We live about a mile off the I-17, and it was packed at Deer Valley Rd. (our jumping on point). So, looking at the traffic, I though it would be a wise chioce to circumvent and stay on the frontage road. No big deal. The frontage road was moving faster than the interstate, and we decided to stop at Wally World to pick up a few extra provisions. So, Happy Valley Rd. and I-17 was still not moving, and getting worse. My mistake was to actually get on the interstate. After getting impatient, I had an opening and got off the 17 at Jomax. We took the back way to the Carefree Highway through back roads and surface streets. This dumped us off at the Carefree Highway and 27th Ave. This part of the journey has already taken us almost an hour and the girls needed a break. We stopped off at Albertsons and while the girls were doing their thing, I went in search for firewood (who knew it would be so hard to find firewood in Phoenix in September?). No luck there. So, we hopped across the street and took one last shot at firewood at the Home Depot. We're in luck! I grab a few bags, hop back in the truck and head back for the I-17. Slow going until we hit Anthem, and then it opened up a bit. Finally, we were on the road and heading to cooler temps in the pines of the Coconino National Forest.
Through out the trip up north, the rain was off and on, but traffic was pretty light and it didn't cause any problems, the trip was pretty uneventful. Exit on Stoneman Lake road and follow it until it turns to dirt. It comes to an end a bit later, and then we turn on to FR 229 and just keep on going. This was actually a lot of fun because of the rain. The road was like red ice, very slippery, but even better was it kept all the Rhino's and ATV's at their campsites. It also made a terrible mess of the Montero, but gave us some pretty cool wheel art:
This was taken the next morning after rain and dew got to it.
I wanted to go to a very secluded spot I used to go to so we could be alone, but to my ultimate sadness (but I'm sure out of neccessity), the Forest Service closed the trail leading to that spot. Oh well. On to option two. We keep following FR 229 to the base of Apache Maid and another semi secluded spot that I used to go to. Luckily, my spot was not taken, but sadly, near the entrance someone within the last four years had crated a huge camp area and it was now taken by a group of people with an enormous trailer and two extremely noisy ATV's. This often times does not bother me, but when I see these people on ATV's running through the forest willy nilly and not sticking to designated trails, it really makes me angry. Anyway, I digress. We got camp set up in the pouring rain, and then spent the next 30 minutes fighting with rain, wind, and wood trying to get a fire started. We finally got it going and were happy. It is now about 5:30pm and the rain has stopped. Jacki, the self appointed camp chef, made an excellent dinner of sliced Kielbasa, tomatoes, and black beans served atop long grain and wild rice. All was right with the world. We sat, relaxed, ate our dinner, enjoyed the warmth of the fire and watched the clouds break and reveal a beautiful full moon:
After some S'mores and clean up, it was time for bed. We hunkered down for a chilly night and got some rest.
More to come.
So, we went entirely off plan and woke up a little late on Saturday morning, packed the truck, and headed up north in the middle of a rain storm. We were not going to let a little rain spoil our fun. My initial thoughts on Saturday were to take our time getting loaded and ready and then hopefully miss the residual traffic on the way up. Well, at about 11 am sounded like a good time to head out, and traffic should be gone. Was I wrong! We live about a mile off the I-17, and it was packed at Deer Valley Rd. (our jumping on point). So, looking at the traffic, I though it would be a wise chioce to circumvent and stay on the frontage road. No big deal. The frontage road was moving faster than the interstate, and we decided to stop at Wally World to pick up a few extra provisions. So, Happy Valley Rd. and I-17 was still not moving, and getting worse. My mistake was to actually get on the interstate. After getting impatient, I had an opening and got off the 17 at Jomax. We took the back way to the Carefree Highway through back roads and surface streets. This dumped us off at the Carefree Highway and 27th Ave. This part of the journey has already taken us almost an hour and the girls needed a break. We stopped off at Albertsons and while the girls were doing their thing, I went in search for firewood (who knew it would be so hard to find firewood in Phoenix in September?). No luck there. So, we hopped across the street and took one last shot at firewood at the Home Depot. We're in luck! I grab a few bags, hop back in the truck and head back for the I-17. Slow going until we hit Anthem, and then it opened up a bit. Finally, we were on the road and heading to cooler temps in the pines of the Coconino National Forest.
Through out the trip up north, the rain was off and on, but traffic was pretty light and it didn't cause any problems, the trip was pretty uneventful. Exit on Stoneman Lake road and follow it until it turns to dirt. It comes to an end a bit later, and then we turn on to FR 229 and just keep on going. This was actually a lot of fun because of the rain. The road was like red ice, very slippery, but even better was it kept all the Rhino's and ATV's at their campsites. It also made a terrible mess of the Montero, but gave us some pretty cool wheel art:
This was taken the next morning after rain and dew got to it.
I wanted to go to a very secluded spot I used to go to so we could be alone, but to my ultimate sadness (but I'm sure out of neccessity), the Forest Service closed the trail leading to that spot. Oh well. On to option two. We keep following FR 229 to the base of Apache Maid and another semi secluded spot that I used to go to. Luckily, my spot was not taken, but sadly, near the entrance someone within the last four years had crated a huge camp area and it was now taken by a group of people with an enormous trailer and two extremely noisy ATV's. This often times does not bother me, but when I see these people on ATV's running through the forest willy nilly and not sticking to designated trails, it really makes me angry. Anyway, I digress. We got camp set up in the pouring rain, and then spent the next 30 minutes fighting with rain, wind, and wood trying to get a fire started. We finally got it going and were happy. It is now about 5:30pm and the rain has stopped. Jacki, the self appointed camp chef, made an excellent dinner of sliced Kielbasa, tomatoes, and black beans served atop long grain and wild rice. All was right with the world. We sat, relaxed, ate our dinner, enjoyed the warmth of the fire and watched the clouds break and reveal a beautiful full moon:
After some S'mores and clean up, it was time for bed. We hunkered down for a chilly night and got some rest.
More to come.
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