Bull Springs Road 4 Wheel Trip

Little-used mining road crosses Santa Rita Mountains from Interstate 19 to Hwy. 82 south of Patagonia. See mines along the route and adobe ruins at Alto Camp, once a community of several hundred people. The post office was active until 1933. Narrow, rocky shelf road at higher elevations. Suitable for high clearance stock SUVs. Remote location.

Read more at Trails.com: Bull Springs Road | Arivaca Junction Arizona Off-Road Trails | Trails.com http://www.trails.com/tcatalog_trail.aspx?trailid=XFT002-074#ixzz16duNAxui

Wow!  What a way to spend an afternoon.  Thanks Brooks and Lou! (and Pancho)

Brooks and Lou are staying here in the park and we have been playing golf and enjoying dinners together. They invited us to go on a back road trip with them in their truck which is rigged up for this kind of terrain.  Brooks has a book with maps and descriptions of back road routes in Arizona so we picked one they had not been on, grabbed our picnics and headed out today in cool and windy weather.  We started on Elephant Head road, yes the road that leads to Elephant Rock, one of the prominent landmarks here in the Santa Rita's.  It was paved but then we got to Bull Springs Road and the fun began.

The road was so rough and rocky and full of huge ruts that we were bouncing around like popcorn!  Brooks said the trip was 20 miles and after a few minutes of this I realized we would never get out by dark.  We were going 15 miles an hour max!  But if you do the math we actually had lots of time.  Okay, relax, breathe.  Lou didn't seem to be worried at all.  She just held onto Pancho and enjoyed the ride.  Well so could I!

John was reading from the book and about 2 miles in,  the road was supposed to worsen!  I couldn't imagine this and I think even Brooks was wondering if we should turn back.  Although I couldn't see how we could ever turn around. We gave it another couple of miles and the road actually improved.  Well, it was only as wide as the truck and the bumps and turns were precarious especially as we climbed higher into the mountains but the ruts were not as big.   I guess that is an improvement.

The desert and mountains here are amazing and to be right in the thick of it was a thrill.  Mesquite trees, prickly pear and all kinds of other strange vegetation that I can't name yet is all around.  In between this scrubby vegetation is lots of dust and rocks.  And there are mountains all around...literally.  If you do a 360 that is all you see.  Sometimes we could look down, up or back and see the road, more like track, that we were following.  It looked so small and un-passable for the truck.  But we plodded along and before I knew it we were doing a hairpin turn at an elevation of 5000 feet with no room for error!  Yikes!  My heart pounded a bit but Brooks kept us nicely on track and even stopped so we could get out and take pictures.  What a hero!

I thought heading down would be easier but it was dicey in spots too.  However, by now I realized we were going to live and was really enjoying this.  We did see old mine shafts, junky cars full of bullet holes, other 4-wheelers, deer hunters, cattle and even a couple of campsites.  What?  Are they nuts?  Who would want to tent out in this desert right now, or ever?  It is going down to freezing tonight and who knows who or what is out here?  Deer hunting season must have just started.  We talked to a couple of guys who said they were hunting white-tailed deer.  But we didn't see any deer today.  We did hear gunshots though.

We crossed many cattle guards which are all over Arizona since many areas are free range for cattle.  I do not really understand this since the cattle can't possibly get fat out here eating prickly things and climbing around this rough terrain.  They have to be lean and mean!  But we saw lots of cow patties and even the cows themselves!

We stopped at Alto Camp Ruins for lunch but it was so cold we ate in the truck.  That was just fine however.  Despite the cool temperatures it was a great day to do this trip.  Brooks' truck is very nice and comfortable so we could enjoy the experience and not freeze.  The last part of the trip was through private ranch land but they permit people to go through it.  The road got better and better as we neared highway 82 on the other side.  We did go through a river and there was water in it!  Most of the rivers here have no water right now, they are just dry beds.  Brooks revved it up and we splashed through no problem.

When we got to the highway we turned toward Nogales, the Mexican Border town that is less than half an hour from here by the Interstate.  It took us more than 4 hours to get there by the back route.  What an excellent way to get up close and personal with the desert mountains of Arizona.