Cruising around in the Southwest - AZ, NM, UT

[alia176]

Hey dudes

I've been bouncing around in the AZ, NM and UT states for the last two weeks for work and play. I am including the links to some pics of the trails I've been done so far as well as some scenery runs.

My buddy, Ray, flew down to Phoenix on Friday and we were on the Bulldog canyon trail about two hours later! We ran Bulldog on Friday, Crown King on saturday, Visited Precott AZ for the first half of Sunday then ran the Greasy Spoon trail in Sedona on the late half of Sunday. I dropped off a battered and sun burned Ray in the airport on Monday morning before heading to ALBQ, NM for house hunting.

On the Crown King trail, another local buddy, Duncan, and his two Huskies were our trail leaders. Duncan also drove my vehicle on one part of the trail. Ray and I spent the night in the roof top tent in Crown King before heading down to Prescott on the Senator's Hwy. When they say Hwy, they mean 45 miles of washboardy, gravel with small rocks type of a road. Ray got a chance to drive the LC Baja style and gave the Yoko Geolander tires a healthy work out. He owns a Disco II so this was an eye opening experience for him

Ray got to play with my .22 rifle and a 9mm Glock on the trail. I brought a piece of plywood, target and a staple gun to be used as a nice target. Ray went to town with both guns and Duncan and I got scared. We all thought that Ray was a mild mannered LR dude - think again!

I don't have to be at work until late Monday so I wandered around quite a bit on my travels. This was no exception on the drive from Albuquerque to UT. I took some side roads that were usually dirt, washboard type roads but took me through very scenic parts of Utah. One such trail is known as the Comb Wash road. This road was founded by the Pioneers way back when. I came across some Petroglyphs and took a few pictures. I also came across a Jeep Commander with three flat tires. They must've left it last night looking for help because I wasn't able to find anyone.

I bunked down for the night off of hwy 191, next to an old ranch house/shack on Sat night. I took some picture of the area at dusk and at dawn for your amusement. On these types of drives, I usually wrap a left over pizza or a large burrito in alum foil and leave it in the engine bay for several hours. After setting up the tent (about 1 min), I had myself a nice hot pizza slice and a very cold Corona to end the day.

Glen Canyon Rec area is also a neat place to get an overview of Lake Powell and Colorado River. Mr Powell was another pioneer who discovered quite a bit of the West.

I'm in Richfield, UT currently for work but plan on driving down to Moab on Wed to meet up with the other Mudders. I passed several LCs heading East on hwy 24 (west of Hanksville) I'll probably spend about a day or so before heading home to get reacquainted with our nine week old daughter. Three weeks away from the baby has been very hard indeed

The pics:

Bulldog canyon:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/alia1...done=http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

Back Road to Crown King:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/alia1...done=http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

Greasy Spoon trail in Sedona:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/alia1...done=http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

Drive to UT from NM
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/alia1...done=http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

Enjoy!

Ali

 

[clarkrw3]

I enjoyed meeting you at the Sonic. Glad you have had fun in the SW, hope to catch up with you again in moab in a couple days.

 

[Romer]

Ali, try and drop by Spanish Trail campground by 11AM. Cdan and I have the morning shift and then a few of us are going to go pre-run something. You don't have to be registeered for CM06 to go on a pre-run with us.