By Patty Wilber
Last week, I took off from horse training and teaching at the college and went on an adventure with my friend Amber and her Jeep, Fiona, while our other halves hiked in the Grand Canyon. I’d like to do a Grand Canyon trip but I am not fit enough and I didn’t want to take the time to get fit–but maybe next year after I retire from the college–or maybe not!
I missed a horse show for this trip. Gasp. But the trip was scheduled before the horse show, and besides, maybe it is ok to do something in addition to horses once in a while!
We spent the first night in snowy Flagstaff, then bid the hikers adieu.
On Monday, we wanted to go to the Grand Canyon Caverns, on a stretch of Old 66, but the elevator into the cave was broken! We drove down Diamond Creek Road to the Colorado from Peach Springs, and then stayed at the motel by the Caverns, did a little hike, and had dinner at the cavern restaurant.
Amber had researched 4WD trails near Kingman, AZ. On Tuesday’s trail, a guy on a 4-wheeler mansplained how we shouldn’t go further as it might be too rough for us. Eyeroll. It was not a problem.
Before that, he did let us try out his gold divining rods. It was weird, but they moved what felt like on their own for both of us, mimicking the way they moved for the guy. I did a quick search to understand how dowsing rods work, but didn’t find anything I felt was worth linking here.
On Wednesday, we (me as the mostly stoic passenger except for that one time Amber was sort of looking at me and I thought Fiona was going to roll over… I might have over-reacted a little then…) tackled a bit of rock crawling and some STEEP and narrow trails. Scream Hill, for example, and one quite a bit more pucker-inducing than that. It even had a Bail Out trail before the tough stuff. We did not bail out.
This one was steep–but we had steeper, rockier and very narrow ridgelines, later. FUN!
Fiona the Jeep, piloted by Amber. Rockstars, both. (Get it? Rock?)
We saw stunning vistas, beautiful rocks and rock formations, murals, pictographs, mines, and the Panty Tree and Stripper Pole. Yep. That feature even has its own brown Forest Service-type sign. Unfortunately, the tree, hung with various varieties of lingerie, had recently burned, perhaps by someone who was offended by panties in a tree?
It started raining Wednesday night, because whenever we go to Arizona in mid-March, it pours down rain (three for three years). On Thursday we headed toward Boulder City, Nevada, over Sigreaves Pass, which was part of old 66, through Oatman, a “ghost” town that is akin to Madrid, here in NM. Except they have burros hanging around in town! We didn’t stop since it was so wet, but continued to the Colorado River and crossed into Nevada. (Well, we did hit a museum in Bullhead City–which is named for a rock in the River that looks like–drum roll–a bull’s head.)
A burro hanging out on a boardwalk in Oatman to get out of the rain!
The rain quit in Nevada. We hiked to some pictographs and then drove over Christmas Tree Pass, a dirt road that did not test Fiona’s 4WD capabilities and didn’t have any Christmas trees, either, except one little metal Christmas tree yard ornament on a stick! It was still fun and scenic!
Pictographs in Nevada!
We visited the Hoover Dam and the amazing Mike O’Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, which is the bypass bridge for the dam. The bridge opened in 2010. Not a bad day for a rainy day!
Friday wasn’t rainy, but it sure wasn’t the 80 degrees we’d planned on (it was 85F the week before) for our 12-mile kayak down the Colorado from the base of the dam. Nope. It was 42F. And windy.
Fortunately, it was a flat water paddle so were were not busting through rapids getting drenched. I still got pretty cold, so when we stopped at the last hot springs for the day, me and Amber and our guide took full advantage and had a nice soak. I could have stayed there a really long time…
Early morning. 42F at the base of the Hoover Dam, with the bridge overhead. This is where we put in for the kayak trip.
Toward the end of the trip, the wind got fairly ferocious and we had to paddle hard to keep from being blown backward, even though we were going downstream. We were cold and sore when we hauled out at Willow Beach, but it was a really fun day!
We fortunately had the right clothes!
We had planned to drive back to Flagstaff to catch up with the hikers, but I40 was shut down due to snow just east of Kingman. Instead, we found a cute hotel in Kingman called the Ramada (by Wyndham) on old 66 that had been revamped with murals and memorabilia. Also, it was one of the few places that apparently still had rooms for stranded travelers, and it was 80 bucks for the night. I really enjoyed it!
On Saturday, the AZ highway info system kept saying that I40 was going to be closed until, like, forever (3:30 pm!), but they were wrong. Things started moving and the roads were good by 11, so we were able to head home from our grand adventure safely!
Happy to be home. That was a heck of a week!
