Last weekend, Jayrat, CAWoody and myself traveled to Wickenburg Arizona to meet up with a larger group and embark on the Rogue Overland Winter Expedition. We met early Friday morning at "Vulture City," which is an old town surrounding a (still active) gold mine south of Wickenburg. We were treated to a private tour of the grounds, complete with visits to all of the awesome buildings on the property (including the old town brothel) and even more amazing stories from our tour guide.
We departed and took a convoy of 28 rigs through Wickenburg and north into Box Canyon, which was a really awesome trail that basically ran through a semi-dry riverbed. We camped for the night near Constellation, AZ and had an awesome pot luck dinner.
Saturday morning, we departed camp as a group and took the Wickenburg Mountains trail east toward Lake Pleasant. It was a long but very fun day of wheeling amidst some amazing Arizona scenery. We even paid a visit to Isaac Bradshaw's grave, who was one of the two brothers behind the infamous Bradshaw Trail (the gold road to La Paz). We camped on the north side of Lake Pleasant, and enjoyed a raffle of goodies donated by many sponsors. I am happy to say that I won the grand prize - a Yeti 20 cooler!
The next morning, we broke camp and did a little pavement driving around the south end of Lake Pleasant and then northeast until we caught I-17. From there, we headed into the little town of Rock Springs and stopped for some amazing pie and cinnamon rolls. Jayrat said his goodbyes to the group and departed for home to ensure he'd make it before sundown, and a few others departed for home from this location as well. The remainder of the vehicles proceeded a bit more north to the start of the Turkey Creek Trail. This was one of the coolest trails I've ever been on! It was technical and challenging with some rock crawling sections, but was full of epic scenery and crossed over a river about 8 or 9 times. The one main obstacle on the trail was gnarly (the photos do not do it justice), with a major curved and off-camber tilt over a rock garden, right next to a 15 foot drop off down into the creek. It ended up taking over one hour to spot the entire group of rigs through the obstacle, but everyone made it through OK with no mishaps (even this massive Chevy 2500 Duramax rig that was part of the group).
We ended the day in Cleator AZ at the Cleator Bar and "Yacht Club." We were originally supposed to stop here for a drink, but continued on because we had spent several hours longer on the trail than anyone had expected. We aired back up and the group was supposed to take highways down to Apache Junction and camp for the night, but because of the loss of time, they pulled an audible and decided to head north toward Sedona instead. Several more folks (including Woody and myself) said our goodbyes and departed from the group, taking I-17 back through Phoenix and catching I-10 toward home We all got home late Sunday evening (I think I pulled in around 10:40 pm), while others arrived back at their respective destinations of Vegas and beyond. The remainder of the group camped Sunday night and spent Monday morning running the Broken Arrow trail before departing back to their respective destinations.
It was an amazing trip, and I am so honored to have been part of it. There were a few hiccups each day (a broken steering box on a rig on day 1, an overturned trailer and Woody's rig briefly becoming stuck on day 2, and a flat tire on day 3), but the group was so prepared and overcame each challenge pretty quickly. If you're unfamiliar with Rogue Overland, I'd recommend that you follow their social media pages and check out their YouTube channel, which is full of awesome videos. Such a classy group of folks that know how to put on a hell of a trip! Here are some photos from day one:
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