Arizona

Bull Spring Road, Amado to Patagonia
February 21, 2004
On a previous visit to the Patagonia area, I found there were lots of interesting old mining roads and ghost towns. The trails were quite easy, so it seemed like a good place to explore when I was riding on my own. A quick trip down I-19 to the Arrivaca Junction exit (the Cow Palace and the Longhorn Saloon restaurants here are worth a visit) leads to Elephant Head Road and then to Mt Hopkins Road. A few days earlier I tried this ride with Sandy on the backseat, but Bull Spring Rd was too rough for 2-up riding, so we back tracked to Mt Hopkins road and followed it up to the Smithsonian Observatory at over 7000' - it's a graded dirt road suitable for cars but it has great views on both sides of the Santa Rita mountains. From Mt Hopkins Rd, Forest Service Rd 143 takes you all the way to Patagonia and goes over 5000' at it's highest point. Most of the way it's a shelf road cut into the hillside and it offers great views. There's many abandoned mines in the area with numerous side trails to them - lots to explore here. After reaching Hwy 82 just south of Patagonia, I picked up Flux Canyon trail down to Harshaw Road, which leads through the ghost towns of Washington Camp and Duquesne, before ending at Lochiel. This used to be a border crossing town into Mexico, but the crossing has been long closed and Lochiel is derelict. Backtracking to Washington Camp picks up Duquesne Rd leading to Nogales. After reaching Hwy 83 just north of Nogales, I crossed over to N. River Rd and headed for the Ruby Interchange on I-19 - this would be a great road for sport bikes - freshly resurfaced and endless twists and turns - it was even great on the KLR! Rather than head up I-19 to Tucson, I took the opportunity to re-ride the Ruby-Arrivaca-Amado road - the first half is a graded dirt road and OK for cars, but the rest has to be the best sport bike road in Arizona! Really smooth grippy surface and lots of closely linked turns and undulations - the bike never seems to be vertical. There's almost no traffic and good line of sight on the turns so this is a fast ride! The road ends at the Cow Palace and it makes a great stop off for dinner.

Patagonia Mountains
....
Bull Spring Road	Flux Canyon

Montana Mountain, Florence Junction
February 22, 2004
We've had a few rides in the Florence area and found the Jeep trails there to be spectacular. There were a couple more in my "Backcountry Adventures" that we hadn't tried so we decided to Montana Mountain and Telegraph Canyon today. Starting from our usual spot in Florence, we headed out along the now familiar Price Road and Box Canyon, turning off onto a new track at Mineral Mountain Rd. This road was really busy with families on ATV's and wasn't very interesting as it quickly headed out of the mountains. After reaching Hwy 60, a quick jog west brought us to the start of the Montana Mountain trail. At first this didn't seem too interesting as it was a wide 2-lane graded dirt road, but things improved after turning onto Forest Service Rd 172. After the turn onto FS 172A, the road got much rougher as it climbed to 5000' and offered great views from overlooks and the shelf road itself - the weather was very overcast and difficult to get good scenic photos - need a trip back on a sunny day! The wild switchback road down the east side of the pass was fun and there were so many side trails that we decided this area would need another visit to explore further. Back on Hwy 60, another mile east was the start of Telegraph Canyon. This was a first rate DS trail, much rougher than Montana, and again offered many side trails. There were no real tough spots and the KLR's/KTM did fine. We had time to spare when finishing Telegraph (it was only 4:30pm!), so we headed down to our favourite, Martinez Cabin, and tried a bit of the impassible (on a KLR) Martinez Canyon, while watching the jeeps creep over huge boulders. We just made it back to the Pizza place in Florence by dark for a welcome rest and food - great day of riding, and nice to meet new guy, Pierre on his KLR.

Montana Mountain and Telegraph Canyon
....
Pierre (KLR650) and Mike (KTM Adventure)	Telegraph Canyon

Box and Martinez Canyons
		..
Mike on Box Canyon	Looking for the line!	Martinez Canyon is really only meant for Jeeps

Home

Contents