Mingus & Smiley Rock 05/06/06

[datrupr]

Had a great run yesterday with Mark and a friend of his Dave. We ran the old narrow guage rail bed from Chino Valley up and around into Jerome down into Clarkdale/Cottonwood and from there we ran up Mingus Mountain and then dropped down into the creekbed and into Smiley Rock.....Don't actually know where Smiley Rock is, neither does Mark or Dave, but I really did not care as I was still enjoying the scenery and the trail. Most of the trail was very easy but great fun until we hit the creek bed into Smiley Rock. I was a little nervous as the rocks are a lot larger than I thought the Trooper would be capable of. But, with some careful spotting I made it through and really enjoyed my day. This had to be by far the longest trail run I have done in a day. It was 78 miles from start to finish and about 70 of that was on dirt. A great day over all and a big thank you goes out to Mark for putting this run together and I hope you had a good birthday. Also, thanks for letting have a go in the BPOS down the creek. Ok, enough of my ramblings, on to the good stuff. Here are a few pics I snapped.


A view of the San Francisco Peaks.

Looking into Clarkdale and Cottonwood.

Looking down into Jerome.

I am actually leading the way on Mingus.

The group on Mingus.

Came across this guy laying across the middle of the road.

He was not happy that we made him move. He was pretending to be a big nasty Rattler.

Made it down into the Smiley Rock area.

With some good spotting provided by Mark it was not too bad.

I think I make this look easy. Don't I?

More pics to come.

 

[datrupr]

And here are some more.

I made it to the end, almost anyway.

Now I am at the end.

And Dave is following in his very cool GREEN CJ. He and Mark in thier built rigs make it look like a cruise down the PCH.

And Dave is through.

But as I said before, all in all it was a great run, and I am very impressed that the Trooper made it through those somewhat large rocks unscathed.





Almost................

I did scrape the front bumper on some of those nasty rocks.

 

[cshontz]

Looks like a great time. That's alot more snake than we typically see here in the northeast. Nice writeup, and thanks for sharing the pics!

 

[flywgn]

Nice report and photos, Aaron. Good looking trail, that Smiley Rock one, and your Trpr is no longer pristine.

A belated Happy Birthday, Mark. :beer:

 

[datrupr]

Allen, it gives a bit more of a reason to add a bull bar.

Thanks for the kind words guys.

 

[Brian McVickers]

That's soo cool to see the Isuzu climbing over rocks:victory:

 

[datrupr]

Thanks Brian, it was a lot of fun. Now, we need to see the Disco crawling over the rocks.

 

[crawler#976]

Aaron did real well! He got to prerun the rocky section in the BPOS

Allen,

Thanks for the B'day greeting! By the way, the Nissan crew got a 2x4 XTerra thru Smiley Rock on a hook with minimal damage, so I'd bet we can get a 4x4 Nissan thru...

:hehe:

Also macro'd a catus flower over on the Verde Valley side of Mingus...